A refugee who injured his spine last month after a fall at a construction site, only to be callously abandoned by the contractor he was working for is still unable to work and is making a slow recovery from his injuries.
On 29 January a man with refugee status in Malta fell from a height of about one storey onto scaffolding, suffering injuries to his lower spine and incurring internal bruising in the process.
But instead of calling an ambulance or taking the injured worker straight to hospital, the contractor he was working for simply brought him back to the Good Shepherd Home in Balzan, a church-run open centre where he resides.
Although the man, Daniel Mahari Kidane, was very clearly in a great deal of pain, the contractor had insisted there was nothing wrong with him.
Workers and residents at the home quickly realised, from the severe pain he was in, that the injuries were far more serious than had been implied by the contractor, and called an ambulance.
Mr Kidane, in fact, needed to be sedated at the hospital, where he spent four days being treated for injuries to his lower spine and internal bruising. Twelve days later, he is still on medication and taking some eight pills a day for his injuries.
Speaking to The Malta Independent on Sunday, Good Shepherd Home director Joe Cardona commented, “What really bothers me is the way such workers are treated, as though they as disposable. If one is injured, they figure they can always get another one.
“After being inured he was simply dumped here. They said there was nothing wrong with him, although he was clearly in pain. He was also moved, which should never be done with back injuries.”
The fact that Mr Kidane was moved from where he had fallen into a van, driven to the home and moved again from the van into the home, without professional care, could have very well compounded his injuries.
The only explanation why the contractor had not called an ambulance or taken the injured worker, a legal refugee with full permission to work in Malta, straight to the hospital was to avoid uncomfortable questions about health and safety at the workplace.
A police report was filed at the Rabat police station and the police are said to be looking into the case.
But while such treatment of foreign workers is common, and has been highlighted on numerous occasions over the last few years, not all employers are so unscrupulous.
Mr Cardona recalls an instance in which a worker had been seriously injured while working for an albeit larger company, which continued paying the individual for a full six months while he was convalescing.