Mater Dei’s Makeshift Ward Worse Than ‘A WW2 Hospital’ – And Patients Are Staying There
This comes after Minister Chris Fearne insisted that the ward has not been used since winter after Adrian Delia published photos of the makeshift ward and the mobile showers.
The Health Ministry claims the makeshift ward is only being used for patients who are temporarily admitted for observation after using A&E services.
It is a different extension to the images Delia published, however, it is within the same ward.
The patient was placed in ward MIU6 following his admission, which is being used as a temporary ward to compensate for the lack of space at Mater Dei.
“My relative was admitted into Mater Dei last Saturday and he was put in ward MIU6,” the woman told Lovin Malta.
“This ward is an ex-staff canteen and the conditions are horrible. There is a huge clutter of unused items stocked into piles in corners, the showers are mobile toilets-like, and there is no privacy whatsoever as the beds are lined up next to each other without any separation curtains,” she said.
“If this was not bad enough, this morning a foul smell of drainage wafted through the ward and all the patients had to be removed from the ward and kept waiting in the corridor on their feet – that is right, sick patients on their feet waiting for the issue to be resolved,” she claimed.
“I feel very upset at the falling standards of Mater Dei. World War 2 hospitals were 5-star compared to this,” the woman said.
“This makeshift ward is horrible in every sense of the word. Mobile showers emitting drainage smells, lack of furniture, piled up debris, windows covered with tearing paper, lack of privacy…”
“Is this a hospital that once used to be state of the art? My heart goes out to all these patients who have to spend their days and nights in such horrible conditions,” she said.
The woman is extremely frustrated by the situation, insisting that while she tried contacting the hospital, she discovered that customer care lines were out of order.
“This whole thing feels like a helpless nightmare!” she said.
Lovin Malta reached out to the Health Ministry for a comment on the matter.
“The photos attached show one of the extensions of MIU6, which is the ward where patients are temporarily admitted for observation after using A&E services before they are discharged, admitted to a specialized ward at Mater Dei Hospital or, transferred to Karen Grech Hospital,” a representative for the Ministry told Lovin Malta.
“Use of this extension is kept to a minimum and only when there is a higher than normal influx of patients using Mater Dei’s A&E services,” he said.
Have you ever encountered anything similar at Mater Dei?
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