“Everything has been running smoothly. There have been no reports of major delays or setbacks,”, Mater Dei communications coordinator, Chris Scicluna told TMID yesterday.
Not even Zurrieq’s firework factory blast, last Thursday affected the migration process. St Luke’s ITU ward will remain active until the last in-patient leaves St Luke’s hospital.
“We have already agreed with the police and the civil protection department that in case Msida gets flooded because of heavy rains, alternative routes can be used.”
Yesterday, the fifth day of migration, saw the turn of the Neurosurgical Ward, the Plastic Surgery and Burns Unit, the Cardiac Surgical Ward, Cardiac Critical Care Unit, and Orthopaedic Ward 2, to move to the new hospital.
“The number of staff in each ward is the same in the two hospitals prior to the migration. Half are in Mater Dei stocking up the wards and the others are at St Luke’s attending patients and operations.”
TMID spoke to one of the staff nurses at the Burns Unit yesterday morning. She said that they had packed most of the boxes and had everything set to join the other staff already at Mater Dei to stock the ward.
Last Thursday, the migrating in-patients were transferred to 12 different Mater Dei wards and departments.
Five more patients moved from the Intensive Care Unit at St Luke’s hospital to Mater Dei. Four of these were transferred from St Luke’s ITU to Mater Dei’s ITU, while the other fifth ITU patient moved to the Neuromedical Ward.
“Police escorted each ambulance with patients inside. Each patient was accompanied by 2 ITU nurses, one anaesthetist and a technician.”
Mr Scicluna said that the public was responding very well to the Mater Dei information campaign and a record of 7,723 calls had reached the Mater Dei line 158 between Monday 22 October and Wednesday 14 November.
Anybody wishing to be referred to the emergency department and the emergency admissions tomorrow can go straight to Mater Dei as from 6am. They can access the hospital from the left hand side of the main door from the San Gwann/ Birkirkara side.
The gynae and maternity emergency cases however should refer to St Luke’s hospital until Monday at 6am. As from Monday at 6am, access to these wards at Mater Dei is from the day-care unit entrance opposite the university.