The administration at the St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly said it was doing its utmost to bring in additional supporting staff where they were needed.

It said it has an agreement with private contractors to provide a number of care workers each day to supplement regular workers at the residence.

These contracts originally were to provide a 100 hour service each day but as the number of dependent residents increased, these contractors were now being asked to provide 300 hours of service each day.

This meant that a service that was to cost around Lm6,000 (EUR13,976) monthly was in fact costing over Lm 18,000 (EUR42,928), apart from the considerable amount of overtime that regular workers at the residence were doing to ensure that the staff complement did not fall short.

Part-time Social Assistants were also employed who had followed a carers’ course in institutions like MCAST and ETC.