Trade unions were set up to safeguard the interests of the members they represent. And they have the right to order industrial action when they see the need to put pressure on the authorities for these interests to be safeguarded. But a line must be drawn when this action goes beyond the need for unions to make their voice heard, and is affecting people’s health and putting their lives in danger.

This is what is happening in the ongoing dispute between the government and the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses. The MUMN has issued a set of directives over the past weeks, which have escalated in the past days, over a shortage of nurses. Patients at the Renal Unit have been negatively affected. Patients at Mount Carmel Hospital have been affected because they were not administered the medication that they require.

The government has said that these directives are endangering people’s lives, and last Friday it said it was issuing a warning letter to nurses to urge them to consider their action, which the government said went against the Industrial Relations Act.

It is not the intention of this leader to discuss the issue of the nursing shortage, which has led to the prevailing industrial dispute. The lack of nursing staff in our hospitals has been an ongoing headache for successive administrations, and there is only so much that governments can do. You cannot just simply grab people by the hair and force them to take the nursing course at University. And you cannot simply go for an international recruitment drive and expect hundreds to turn up at your door. For one thing, just consider the language barrier.

What is being discussed here is the kind of action that the MUMN has ordered. Is the union being responsible when it tells nurses not to pick up medication and to leave the wards if mental patients turn aggressive because they are not taking their medication? We do not think so.

People go to hospitals for treatment. And if this treatment is not being given, then there is a great risk that their health is negatively affected. The government is correct when it says that people’s lives are at stake here. What will the MUMN say if, through its industrial action, someone dies? Is it prepared to face such a responsibility?

In hospitals, even a telephone call that is not answered on time could lead to delicate situations. And this is why the MUMN needs to understand that the directives it has issued are leading to serious risks. Would MUMN president Paul Pace like it if a person he holds close to his heart is not given the treatment he or she requires?

It is likely that there are issues other than the shortage of nurses that have pushed the MUMN into directing its members the way it did. And one of them is the MUMN’s current claim that, as a member of the Forum Unions Maltin, it should have a place in the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development. This industrial action is, in a way, a message to the government that the MUMN is a force to be reckoned with.

It was no surprise that the Forum, through its president John Bencini, yesterday issued a statement in support of the MUMN. Mr Pace is secretary of the Forum too.

But the MUMN, and Mr Pace in particular, would do well to ask itself whether it has the support of the nurses in what it is doing.