A meeting will be held on Thursday to find ways to stop foreign nurses leaving Malta for the UK, where conditions are more family friendly and employment more lucrative.
Identity Malta bureaucracy has been cited as one of the main reasons why around 140 nurses, equivalent to over a fifth of the third-country national nurses working here, have either already quit or are in the process of submitting their resignation.
Representatives of Identity Malta, the Health Ministry and the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) will be meeting to try to find a way to resolve the issue.
MUMN president Paul Pace said the union will stress the need to improve family friendliness, ease bureaucracy and offer rent subsidies to be competitive with UK packages.
A government spokesperson, however, downplayed the talks, saying such meetings were not uncommon.
“Whenever stakeholders indicate a potential difficulty or challenge, in one sector or another, meetings are held to explore the best possible solutions with respect to the laws and exigencies of the country.
“Such discussions are normal and carried out on a regular basis,” he said.
Last month, Times of Malta reported that the country is bracing itself for an exodus of foreign nurses – mostly Indian, Pakistani and Filipino – who are being poached by the UK as part of its efforts to control its spiralling COVID-19 situation.
Pace said the union was “very concerned” that the current long-lasting shortage of nurses will worsen. Following the publication of the article, he said over 200 nurses had written to the union, prompting it to write a letter to the prime minister relaying its concerns.
These included problems with spouses not being able to join nurses here, delays in issuing residence permits as well as demanding and expensive requirements to the annual renewal of work permits.
These can add up to over €400 a year – a €280 fee to Identity Malta as well as mandatory private blood tests and X-rays.
These are among the reasons that pushed Josè Joseph and his wife, Jossy, both Indian nurses, away from the country.
They spoke about the “lack of family sensitivity” as the main reason why they decided to leave the island for a job in the United Kingdom, where the family can finally be reunited without facing unnecessary bureaucracy and heartache.
The couple explained that their one-year-old son, Maxson Josè, has never met his three-year-old sister, Miya.
They had to reluctantly take Miya to live with her grandparents in India until Maxson was born due to difficulties during the pregnancy.
But delays by Identity Malta in issuing residence permits meant they could not travel to collect their daughter after the birth, as planned, they said.