Malta’s nursing union has come together to support a nurse facing a prison sentence over an incident of patient self-harm.

In a press conference outside Mount Carmel Hospital, Joseph Pace was described as a “hero, loved by all the staff, patients and their relatives”.  In 2017, short shortages at the mental healthcare facility led to a patient with Level 1 supervision to self-harming. 

“Every day we have to look at what the needs of the patients are going to be and if let’s say, I need 200 people to man the hospital, without fail there are only 150,” he said. 

“We found him covered in blood. None of us thought about it and we just went in to help because the priority was to save him.” 

Pace was interrogated but the case against Pace continues to this day. He faces thousands in fines and nine years in prison. 

MUMN is demanding that the case against Pace be dropped with head, Paul Pace insisting that the Ministry is yet to rectify similar issues in Mount Carmel and Mater Dei.

“This nurse delegated people and even went down to the ward himself, ending up saving the patient’s life. The police should have realised that this person went out of his way to help the patient,” he said. 

Pace reiterated that the situation at Mount Carmel is yet to improve despite promises of improvement. 

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