Nurses are temporarily being asked to work overtime to make up for the lack of staff at Mater Dei Hospital’s medical and surgical wards where more beds have been added.

Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses president Paul Pace said nurses working with any government hospital could opt to work overtime.

This is a voluntary and temporary measure that will go on until August when about 250 new nurses are expected to graduate. The new nurses will only slightly alleviate the severe staff shortage and long-term plans are needed, Mr Pace said.

Over the past weeks Mater Dei has experienced overcrowding as many patients were admitted following the severe temperature drop.

In an attempt to tackle the problem, health authorities decided to increase the number of beds in medical and surgical wards by two or three. The union disagreed with this saying the wards were not equipped to deal with extra patients and nurses were not coping with the workload.

During a three-hour meeting held on Thursday the union and the health authorities agreed only one extra bed will be placed in each of the hospital’s 11 medial and ­surgical wards.

They also agreed more nurses will be employed in these wards so that staff, already stretched, could better cope with the added beds. Mr Pace said the gaps would be filled by nurses working overtime. He stressed this was only temporary.

The extra beds in the wards will be removed later this year when the new holding bay, which consists of a fully equipped ward, is expected to open.

During Thursday’s meeting the parties also agreed to schedule a series of meetings to discuss other problems that include bed shortages in several wards, lack of policies and the nurse shortage.