The Nationalist Party in a statement from three Gozitan MPs, Chris Said, Frederick Azzopardi and Kevin Cutajar, said that the Party “fully support the position taken by the MUMN on the issue of foreign nurses at the Gozo General Hospital replacing Gozitan nurses who are having to work in Malta.”

This morning the MUMN announced that it had registered an industrial dispute with Steward Health Care Gozo, saying that “no nursing care on query cases on Covid cases will take place, nor will any services continue related to Covid in the Gozo General Hospital.”

In a statement, the Union said that “it is not acceptable that Steward Health Care are to employ foreign nurses at Gozo General Hospital when there are Gozitan nurses working in Malta who are waiting to be transferred to GGH.”

MUMN said that several directives will be issued in all wards in GGH,” which it said, “will affect the service of the whole hospital, including the Downtown Hotel where elderly patients are being nursed instead of the long awaiting elderly home of San Guzepp where the construction work has been halted for these last months.”

The Nationalist Party reiterated that the Government “should immediately terminate the contract with Steward Health Care.”

It added that, “what is currently happening is another clear proof of the huge mistake in the privatisation of the only hospital in Gozo, where Steward Health Care will be employing a number of foreign nurses in the near future.”

The PN MPs stated that “all this is happening as a consequence of an obscene decision of a Labour Government to sell the health of Gozitans, while at the same time also promising work for all Gozitans in Gozo.”

The Nationalist Party concluded by calling on the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health to “suspend the privatisation contract without delay and restore the Gozo General Hospital as a public hospital run by the health authorities.”

Photograph by Anthony Zammit

 

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