The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses has threatened to boycott the migration from St Luke’s Hospital to Mater Dei Hospital and will instruct its members to continue reporting for work at St Luke’s Hospital instead unless it is involved in discussions planning the said process.

At a news conference outside the Mater Dei Hospital, MUMN president Rudolph Cini said the union has been completely left out of the discussion stage of the migration plan. He said the MUMN only received a copy of the draft plan after the secretary general of the Medical Association of Malta, who was participating in a television programme, said that the association had seen this plan.

Mr Cini also said there was a serious shortage of nurses and midwives and the situation would get worse with the increase in demand when operations were transferred to the new hospital.

At present, he said, there was a shortage of about 60 nurses and with the new hospital, there would be the need for an extra 100 nurses and 70 more at Zammit Clapp Hospital. To make matters worse, the situation at the St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly was also serious, with just two nurses for every 50 people residing there.

The MUMN also complained about the lack of planning which led to a decision to relocate the planned child-minding facility for employees working at the hospital. He said this decision contrasted with the government’s efforts to introduce family-friendly measures.

Moreover, he complained, it seemed that the dining area for staff members would be divided into categories according to the grade when it had been specifically promised that there would be “no physical separation between staff of different professions or grades”.

In addition to this, the MUMN was also preoccupied that it had been given no assurance whatsoever with regard to parking availability for its members.

Mr Cini said the union wondered whether negotiations for the government meant submitting prepared and already-decided documents. He appealed to the government to include the MUMN in the discussions for the transition process and warned that without this, the union would have no option but to issue directives on the day the migration was planned to begin and instruct its members to go to St Luke’s Hospital as usual instead.

The MUMN president said the union would like to see certain changes implemented at the new hospital rather than simply have a “change of address” with the same problems and same antics.

He said that when informed about yesterday’s news conference, the health authorities contacted the union to assure them that meetings would be held and that the union would be included in the discussions.