The Commissioner for Health in the Office of the Ombudsman has told unions not to use patients as pawns to exert pressure on the Health Ministry. 

Commissioner Charles Messina's statement comes following an agreement reached between workers' union UĦM – Voice of the Workers and the ministry to absorb workers employed by Steward Healthcare into the public sector, with equal pay and salary scales. 

The issue dated back to 2016 when the government handed over the management of St Luke's, Karin Grech and Gozo hospitals to Vitals Global Healthcare, which subsequently sold its concession to Steward.

The dispute, the commissioner noted, took over 15 months to solve and included more than two months of industrial action.

The action affected not only those hospitals run by Steward Healthcare, but also Mater Dei Hospital from where patients needing rehabilitative treatment could not be transferred to Karin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital, the commissioner noted.

Also, patients could not be transferred from one ward to another. This meant that at Karin Grech Hospital patients in the admission/quarantine ward could not be transferred to their proper ward. 

The Commissioner said patients should not be made to suffer as a result of industrial disputes. 

As well as urging unions not to use patients as pawns, the commissioner also told the Health Ministry to "take immediate action when a union pinpoints a particular problem".