Patients will once again start being treated at the physiotherapy department as the nurses' union suspends directives it ordered last month. 

The Malta Union of Nurses and Midwives (MUMN) decided to suspend the action after Steward Health Care provided promised upgrade timelines on Wednesday. 

In comments to Times of Malta just moments after being handed the timelines for the work at St Luke's Hospital department, union head Paul Pace said that at first glance the timeframes "seem ok".

However, he insisted, the union would be holding a meeting in the coming days to properly go through the information supplied by the US hospital operator and analyse it closely to ascertain that all was in place. Any clarifications, he said, would be sought after the meeting. 

The directives were affecting about 300 patients every day. They came into force some weeks after Times of Malta reported that the department was in such a bad state that the physiotherapists were struggling to treat patients.

Situated at St Luke’s Hospital and run by Steward Health Care, the US company that took over the 30-year government concession to manage three hospitals, the outpatient physiotherapy department is the only one of its kind on the island.

Reacting on Twitter, Health Minister Chris Fearne confirmed that following talks between Steward and MUMN, the directives had been suspended "with immediate effect". 

When the directives were ordered last month, a spokeswoman for Steward had said that the promised master plan for the physiotherapy department at the old St Luke's Hospital had not yet been unveiled because it needed to “dedicate enough time to planning so as to get it right”.

Pressed to provide specific dates when the master plan would be published, a spokeswoman for the US hospital operator would only say this would be available “within a few weeks or months”.

 

 

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.