Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Health and Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and Health Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne are responsible for the Mater Dei administration’s failures, Shadow Minister for Health Claudette Buttigieg said this morning.
Mrs Buttigieg said that, while the hospital was in crisis, its CEO, Ivan Falzon, had “disappeared.”
Mr Falzon, who had a salary of €84,000, was directly appointed by the government, she said, so his failures were ultimately the government’s responsibility.
“Doctors, nurses, carers and other hospital workers speak to us every day about the problems plaguing the hospital but, instead of admitting the problem, the hospital management and the government are trying to hide it.”
She also referred to a report published yesterday in The Malta Independent, which quoted MAM President Gordon Caruana Dingli saying that the doctors working at Mater Dei’s A&E Department were at “breaking point.” The hospital, she said, had never been in such a bad state of management.
The Shadow Minister also spoke about patient beds set up in hospital corridors. “Patients are now being held in corridors that had never been used for this purpose before. The corridor leading from the A&E Department to the medical imaging department has become a sort of official ward. Patients have died and are still dying in this corridor, without any form of dignity.”
PN election candidate Graziella Schembri said patients were people in a vulnerable state and deserved far better treatment than they were receiving. “They should be treated with great dignity but the exact opposite is happening. Instead of admitting this crisis, politicians are saying it does not exist. This is offensive to the patients.”
She also referred to an internal hospital report, published by the PN last week, and said it showed how bad the situation was. The government last week said that the contents of the report had been misinterpreted. “Instead of acting upon the report’s findings, the government has resorted to character assassination on the person who revealed the truth,” Mrs Schembri said.
Asked if the PN was credible when speaking about hospital problems, Mrs Buttigieg said it was indeed because the PN had always published the internal reports. On the other hand this government was trying to keep them under wraps. The PN, she said, also had, and still has, a long-term plan for the hospital. This included the engagement of 150 new nurses and the construction of the oncology centre, which is set to free up at least three hospital wards. “Joseph Muscat had told us that he had immediate plans for the hospital but everyone can see that he was not telling the truth.”
Asked on a UHM report on the situation at the Gozo general hospital, Mrs Buttigieg said that instead of investing in the health services there, the government was selling them off. “Patients will have no option but go to the private sector.” She also insisted that, for the first time, Gozitan nurses were applying for transfers to Malta when the Prime Minister had promised to create more jobs in Gozo.
In reply, the government said the PN knows that the small size of the hospital is a result o bad planning by the Nationalist administration. The opening of the Medical Administration Unit will increase the number of hospital beds by 68 at the end of the year, while the completion of the project next to the Emergency Department will add a total of 300 beds.
Since the start of the year, the number of elective surgical interventions at Mater Dei Hospitalreached 22,743, apart from another 3,828 emergency operations. This was a 17% increase over last year, the government said.
The waiting list for bone density tests has been reduced from 18 months to one month, while that for an MRI was cut down from 18 months to four months.
Photo: Jonathan Borg