Nurses and midwives sent a clear message to government this week, when they voted to reject the government’s sectoral agreement proposal.

The ball is now in the government’s court. The Malta Union of Nurses and Midwives said that during the Extraordinary General Conference, 97.6% of the nurses and midwives who attended voted against while 1% voted in favour. 1.4% were invalid votes. Present were 804 Nurses & Midwives. The union said that this was the largest ever participation for a General Conference since the union’s foundation in 1996.

The union and the government have been at loggerheads for some time now over sectoral agreement negotiations. The union is not happy with what has been offered.

Up until recently, directives were in place, and these were having an effect on the system. Those directives were suspended pending the aforementioned vote. The union has opted not to institute any directives for now, saying that it is giving the government a  chance to offer a stronger financial package.

MUMN president Paul Pace said on Wednesday that the union has sent a letter to the Health Minister asking for a meeting to conclude this sectoral agreement. The union did not specify on a timeframe for when it wants this issue to be resolved.

One hopes that everything will be settled around the discussion table, and that an agreement that is acceptable to both sides can be reached. What I’m sure nobody wants to see is the return of directives, after all they will in some way affect patients.

Surely the two sides can come together and find a middle ground.

Doctors and nurses were dubbed heroes during the Covid-19 pandemic and they deserve a good sectoral agreement after all that they had done. In addition to that, the nursing shortage is one thing that must be kept in mind. The end package, whatever it may be, must be one that ensures that more people are attracted to the nursing profession. These are essential personnel after all.

On the other side of the coin, the government probably would not want a situation where it would offer a package with conditions which could result in disruptions in the health care provision, or result in other sectors coming forward demanding more. It believes that it offered nurses a good package already.

Clearly nurses don’t agree.

An agreement must be found where nurses and midwives are happy, and which the government is ok with. So one hopes the two sides can come together to find solutions.

What should be avoided is a long, drawn out situation where directives are introduced resulting in patients being the ones to suffer.

One point working against the government, is its major blunder with public finances in the form of the hospitals concession debacle. The government’s deal with Vitals Global Healthcare and Steward Health Care place it on the backfoot, with so much money having been spent there. As a general comment regarding the hospitals deal, the government must not repeat such a mistake again in the future and such handling of the taxpayers money in major contracts is completely unacceptable. Accountability still needs to be shouldered on that point.