Some 4,000 nurses and midwives are on strike from this morning, after the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses issued five pages of directives to all public hospitals in Gozo and Malta.

The union said that following numerous meetings that started back in August 2022, it is clear that the Ministry for Health (MFH) “not only lacks respect towards nurses and midwives, but is determined to humiliate and demotivate the whole nursing and midwifery work force through this sectorial agreement.”

The union claimed that the Government “wants to introduce the EVS (Palm Reader) and Appraisal Reports only for all Nurses and Midwives in all grades.” It added that “according to the Government, Nurses and Midwives have to provide a better service in return.”

“The counter proposals of the Government have been consistently ignoring MUMN pleas for a decent sectorial agreement,” the union said.

It stated that “since it is clear that the pleas of MUMN are being ignored in every meeting, MUMN has to register once again a dispute and will not attend further meeting unless the Government through the MFH accepts the following proposals”

No form of appraisal report is to be included in Government’s counter proposal.

The Salary re-structuring included in MUMN proposal has to be included.

There has to be no robotic or EVS (Palm Reader).

The one year interval on the 6.6 hrs extra to come into effect from 1st January 2023.

CPD has to be with the €800 bonus as one time only as for MUMN to accept the €1165 and a guarantee in writing that other professions will not receive more.

All MUMN proposals such as tax credit on overtime, pension schemes, on call, meal allowances etc are to be included in the Government’s counter proposals.

All allowances are to include the nurses & midwives in all grades including Staff Nurses, Midwives, Senior Staff Nurses and Senior Midwives and not just from Charge Nurses upwards as is continuously being proposed by the Government.

Some of the directives which started today, Friday, the 24th of March at 7am, include:

Nurses working at Gozo General Hospital:

All washing of patients by nurses is to be stopped immediately.

This directive is exempted at ITU/CCU and patients with several indwelling devices. Dressing of wounds are still to be done by nurses/midwives.

Not to go out to do any errands and transfer of patients.

Charge Nurses or ward nurses are not to sign for anything that is delivered to the ward such as food trolley, supplies, pharmacy, disposables etc.

Charge Nurses are not to attend the SNMs office periodically to do any Senior Nursing Manager duties.

No clerical work

Nurses in the Primary Care Department including bereg:

All bloodletting excluding INR are to be stopped.

All wound care is to be done from 10am to 2.00pm

Nurses working in Elderly Homes:

Nursing Report is to be written only when a change in patients’ condition has occurred.

Nurses are not to wash, ambulate or take parameters since all such duties can be done by auxiliary staff.

Nurses are not to fill any care plans to cope with the sheer number of patients on your ward.

The only paperwork to be done is to stock the ward with supplies or pharmacy.

Nurses are only to phone relatives if there is deterioration in the condition of the resident or the resident is taken to MDH.

Nurses are not to make use of phone even if called by the ward clerk, concentrate our duties on the patients.

Head Counts are not to be done. That is a security duty besides head counts are not in the job description of the nurse.

Nurses working at Community Care Unit:

Nurses are not to do any outside visits.

Practice Nurses/Midwives, Senior and Advanced Practice Nurses/Midwives:

Not perform any duties that are not directly related to PN/SPN role.

No job shadowing (clinical shadowing) of nurses with practice nurses

Not see outpatients without an appointment (excluding SAMOC)

No participation in development of new or updating of existing guideline documents.

Stop providing clinical practice audit reports.

Not answering any calls from landline telephones

No swabbing for MRSA and COVID-19 by Practice Nurses

No booking of blood tests or swabs by Practice Nurses

No booking of transport for patients.

File photo: Gozo News/Anthony Zammit

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