The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses has said that the ”crisis of shortage of Nurses in our country has no limits and no boundaries. In these past two weeks 14 nurses resigned from Karen Grech Hospital resulting now that this hospital has a nursing shortage of 50 nurses.”
In a statement on Wednesday, the MUMN said that if it had ”permitted the Health Division to issue the call to poach nurses from the Private Sector into the Public Sector, the situation would have been catastrophic.”
According to the Union, ”because of this shortage, out of 270 beds which Karen Grech Hospital possess, only around 140 beds are being actually utilised.”
It went on to say that ”the shortage of nurses is compounded further since even carers of the private contractor, which are an essential part of the supporting staff of the nurses, are resigning and moving to the UK in a rapid mode.”
The MUMN also stated that, ”it is an open secret that Malta is being used as a stepping stone for nurses and carers who spend two years in Malta and after gaining experience and knowledge will then move to the UK which offers much better salaries.”
According to the union, such resignations are also occurring in Mater Dei Hospital, with an average of three nurses a week are moving to UK.
It argued that the Health Minister is ”more concentrated on the election campaign than on the crisis facing each and every hospital in Malta.”
”Whilst on the other hand, the Permanent Secretary in the Health Division (which MUMN has called for his resignation) has already proven that his only concern are industrial disputes and never even tried to seek solutions of such nursing crisis,” the MUMN said.
MUMN said that its ”repeated efforts to open talks for a new sectorial agreement so as to stop such nursing haemorrhages is not even being considered by both the Health Minister and the Permanent Secretary.”
Their only ”solution” was to ”poach nurses from the private sector, a short minded step that leads to a serious catastrophe,” the union said.
It concluded by saying that, ”while all EU countries embarked on addressing their nursing shortage by providing much better working conditions and increased salaries, the Health Ministry’s main concern is only the coming General Election.”