How nauseating and disgusting it is to read and hear repeated official pronouncements stating that the health authorities are still engaged in the futile process of studying and seeking a solution, within the existing space, for the profoundly acute problem of patient overcrowding and severe lack of beds at Mater Dei.

This in our brand new general hospital that has swallowed up scores of millions of euros to build and was purportedly meant to cater holistically for health care and needs of the island.

The highly belated and useless exercises now going on should, rightfully and gainfully, have taken place decades ago long before the drawing board stage of the project. This responsibility quite obviously has to be shouldered by all those appointed as carers and guardians of public health and medical facilities for the whole population.

It is now a matter of owning up and starting to explore feasible avenues to eliminate the permanent stalemate that is causing intolerable suffering to many a patient having to seek care and attention within Mater Dei’s walls.

How tragically comic it is to persist in covering up basic conceptual flaws through unending and time-wasting studies by those who, after all their futile attempts, should have learnt the lesson that correct space, like correct time, is not amenable to change.

All types of bickering from whatever quarter should be stopped forthwith and united efforts should be directed towards one urgent objective − that of providing a truly permanent solution to the ever-present problem of bed space.

Apparently, those at the helm still have to learn and convince themselves that it is only in old buildings that one can juggle and play around with bed accommodation for the simple reason that medical and care concepts and practices at the time were still very primitive compared to present day highly advanced and sophisticated concepts.

Hence the old trend of palatial-like planning for hospitals providing an overabundance of space for beds and the limited ancillary facilities in use at the time.

It is thanks to this liberal and lavish space that modernisation and upgrading work have been possible in the old hospitals.

Contemporary hospital design and planning, however, is a completely different kettle of fish and cannot be approached or meddled with by the outmoded and conservative method and thinking applicable solely to old structures.

It is about time that all those concerned with health administration to learn and understand that the more state-of-the-art a hospital building is, the more it resembles an intricate jig-saw puzzle where it is impossible either to change position or insert additional pieces without totally upsetting and disturbing the equilibrium and integrity of the whole ensemble. This for the simple reason that all components are precisely tailored and cut to fit perfectly into an integrated and studied whole.

On the basis of this analogy, the one and only solution that is practically feasible for resolving bed space and overcrowding problem at Mater Dei is that of extending the floor space for beds and the necessary ancillary services that accompany them.

I am firmly convinced that this expansion should be effected only in a vertical sense thereby avoiding further aggravation of the present uneconomical and staff-consuming horizontal sprawl of the layout.

May those in authority, therefore, put on their thinking caps and reading specs and, if these happen to be past their shelf-life date, may they cast them away and replace them with new or hired ones.

Now is the opportune time for the health authorities to concentrate with all due diligence and dedication on their homework, avoiding past mistakes of commission or omission, in the preparation of a studied and comprehensive extension brief for the architects to follow.

It must also be made amply clear that a realistic and efficient brief must include not only the provision of bed space etc for ordinary present and future anticipated requirements, but should also incorporate sufficient space for beds during emergencies, natural or man made which, unfortunately, may inevitably happen some day in the foreseeable trend of a faster and more complicated lifestyle.

To conclude and as a final useful guide, it is worth recollecting the famous, wise advice delivered a century ago by Florence Nightingale that... “the foremost requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick ...(and, may I add with all due respect to the author, the staff)... no harm”.

Edwin Calleja

BALZAN