The order given by the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses for new admissions at St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly to be refused has been frozen by a court.

The directive was issued last August after the union protested against the outcome of an inquiry into the disappearance of a resident, who was later found dead.

In a decision on Friday, Mr Justice Neville Camilleri upheld a court application for a temporary injunction filed by the Active Ageing Ministry earlier in the day.

The MUMN now has five days to present its legal arguments to that effect. 

The ministry resorted to court action after attempts to resolve the impasse through negotiations failed.

The directive was issued after an employee was suspended from his job over the disappearance of Carmelo Fino, 83, who was found dead in a Birzebbuga field two weeks later.

The MUMN had taken exception to the conclusions of the inquiry into the disappearance of the patient.

Last Sunday, The Malta Independent on Sunday carried a report in which MUMN president Paul Pace said that “There can be no place for negotiations, before (suspended member) Rhys Xuereb is given back his job and reimbursed his missing pay for the past few months.”

The union directive has blocked any transfer of patients from Mater Dei Hospital to SVPR, with the result that the hospital is overcrowded with patients while there are empty beds at the residential home.

Active Ageing Minister resorted to a mandatory injunction against the nurses instead of addressing the issues - MUMN 

The Active Ageing Minister is hiding behind the law courts with no regards to the health and safety of the residents at SVP and to the nurses, the MUMN said in response to the court’s decision.

“While other Government officials were not suspended when being charged in court with manslaughter, the Active Ageing Minister still wants to allow the suspension of a framed nurse to continue,  even though such nurse was never charged nor accused of any crime besides never given the opportunity to be interrogated,” the union said.

Although MUMN strived to achieve a natural justice, the union said that the “arrogance of Minister Joe-Etienne Abela prevailed since it is clear that two weights and two measures system is being adopted.”

“While the Health Department was ready to accept the suspended nurse so that talks could start between MUMN and the Elderly Department, Elderly Minister Minister Joe-Etienne Abela never bothered to write to the PSC to terminate the suspension of the nurse. Instead, Abela, through sheer arrogance, preferred to go and hide behind the law courts,” the union added in its statement.

“Due to this mandatory injunction, nurses working in SVP and Elderly Homes are once again expected to work against all odds having 37 patients taken care by one nurse. Residents of SVP who need special care will be once again be jeopardized since one nurse can never cope with the huge number of patients in every SVP ward. Not to mention that in Homes, one nurse will once again have 80 residents; which is not right at all and can easily lead to malpractice.”

The union said that this is the second mandatory injunction on such directives, which directives were allowed by the court itself and that due to this injunction it is forced to suspend the directives.

“The lack of respect to the patients and to the nursing profession by the supposedly future Health Minister is astonishing and Jo-Etienne Abela does not merit to be a minister at all,” the union concluded.