The militancy with which MUMN president Paul Pace is running the nurses union is harming the welfare of patients as well as the good name of the Maltese nursing profession.

It is however undeniable that, in general, the population holds nurses in high regard which is taken advantage of by the health authorities that are all too ready to put an unfair burden on a willing horse.

The acute shortage of nurses in many units of our public health service comes as no surprise. Indeed the health authorities have been talking about it for years. What the same authorities have not done is taken concrete steps to effectively increase the numbers of nurses employed by the Health Department.

The feeling is that they have limited this recruitment with eyes wide open, conscious of the serious recurrent, annual, national budget deficit.

It would seem natural, if this were the case, to limit the health services the department offers the public to match the nurse resources it has available.

Instead it goes merrily on adding new services straining the nursing cadres even further while basic hospital services like waiting lists for operations remain unacceptably long.

It is therefore inevitable that things should come to a head and that something has to give; however, militancy on the one hand and obstinacy on the other will not lead to a solution and in the end the country will suffer.

Prof. J.A. Muscat

TA’ XBIEX