Patients are being kept at the hospital for an extra day until consultants review their blood test results and discharge them the next day, sources within Mater Dei told this newsroom.

Sources explained that changing the working hours of consultants is a no go and therefore patients whose test results are issued at 2 pm are not given feedback on the results until the next day when the consultant returns to hospital. Often the tests are clear, and they would have spent a night in hospital needlessly.

"Consultants are the only ones who can discharge a patient from hospital and junior doctors on duty at the hospital cannot give a patient the go ahead to leave.

"Consultants are not present to discharge patients when blood tests results are released at 2 pm or 4 pm," source said. "This creates an inconvenience for both the patient and the hospital since they would have to spend an extra day in hospital instead of returning to work or staying in the comfort of his/her home until the consultant returns the next day."

 "In other countries patients see their consultants two or three times a day but this practice in Malta hardly ever takes place. In fact, when patients are given an appointment, it is not always the case that the consultant would see to them but assisting doctors. The same goes for inpatients when it comes to being examined at certain times of the day," sources continued.

This newsroom has many a time highlighted that the hospital is under severe stress in terms of the influx of patients the hospital receives.

Sources said that the overcrowding situation has not changed, except the reduction of the cataract operation waiting list.