Doctors Give Mater Dei Ultimatum To Resolve Issues With Nurses Union After Having To Taken On Additional Tasks
Malta’s doctors have issued an ultimatum to the government and the administration at Mater Dei Hospital for an industrial dispute with phlebotomists to be resolved.
The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses had issued a directive to its members for them to limit the number of patients they see every day over a lack of progress in agreeing on a new sectoral agreement.
The dispute has seen young doctors need to step in to do the job of drawing patients’ blood themselves, but the doctor’s union has now stepped in and said it has had enough.
“We’ve had enough of dangerous directives. We gave them a deadline and the management knows it. It is high time that management either acknowledges their claim or else goes to court. Either way, they must resolve the issue,” Medical Association of Malta president Martin Balzan told the Times of Malta.
Balzan said it was the hospital management’s responsibility to ensure that patients weren’t placed at risk and that the hospital could operate efficiently.
Balzan did not specify what action doctors would take should the matter not be resolved, saying only that MAM “reserved the right to take all action deemed necessary”.
According to sources who spoke with the Times, not all phlebotomists are following their union’s directive, but enough have done so for this to have impacted operations.
A considerable amount of blood tests have been postponed as a result of the action.
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