Third Year medical students at the University of Malta were denied their Gastroenterology placement this week due to a lack of consultants at Mater Dei Hospital.

The lack of placements is a direct result of the influx of Barts Medical students who occupied two consultants for their placement, also in Gastroenterology, the Malta Medical Students’ Association and KSU said in a joint press release.

“It is now abundantly clear that the new influx of Barts Medical students is already putting a strain on the system and is denying UM students full access to the academic staff at Mater Dei,” it read.

Following endless delays, Barts Medical School opened its four-story, 8,100 square meter Gozo campus back in October 2019.

However, the influx of students to the school has stretched teaching staff at Mater Dei hospital, resulting in a shortage of placement opportunities for medical students at the UoM.

“The MMSA-KSU Taskforce dealing with this matter had already raised its preoccupation with the Ministry for Health about this possibility of such occurrences. We are disappointed to see that the valid concerns of the medical students at UM were not taken seriously.”

“As of right now, Barts Medical School is not yet operating at full capacity. This incident further exacerbates our concern that as student numbers increase, these incidents will become more frequent to the detriment of the quality of medical education at UM,” the statement ended.

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