Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said people with serious and grave conditions have been left for days without a bed.
The Health Ministry has rebutted claims of overcrowding inside Mater Dei hospital, insisting the Opposition was not offering solutions to the problems it highlighted.
Reacting to a statement by his Opposition counterpart Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, health minister Joe Cassar accused Labour of having no vision for health or the advancements in medical care that had contributed to more longevity for the Maltese.
"The emergency department is seeing to an average of 300 inpatients daily, 66 of which require Mater Dei's services while a substantial number would be better seen to by a family doctor," Cassar responding to criticism that patients had been left waiting for a bed days on end.
Cassar said MDH had more than doubled its consultants inside the A&E department to seven, while an extra 20 beds inside A&E were being used to keep patients under observation. Another 16 beds are to be added to the current stock.
Patients who are waiting for their relatives to pick them up are now being accommodated in a discharge lounge, which has seen 2,000 patients since it was opened in March 2011.
Shadow health minister Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said a bed shortage at the Mater Dei hospital had turned to worse, with patients requiring care having spent days on stretchers or armchairs in the hospital corridors.
"People with serious and grave conditions have been left for hours waiting, but even worse, left for days without a bed," Coleiro Preca said.
The Labour MP said it was shameful that a hospital that took 17 years to build and was more expensive than first estaimted, has left the public without peace of mind if they ever need care at the hospital.
"This suffering is being felt by patients and also the hospital staff, who are having to work in a difficult environment to care for patients, with a lack of resources and facilities. This situation cannot be tolerated, and government must adopt temporary measures to alleviate the problem," Coleiro Preca said.
The MP said government had to take responsibility for the lack of strategy and planning in the health sector. "It must be honest and truthful about the reasons bringing about this situation, and not blame social cases like the elderly. The government must take necessary measures to provide the best of care to those who need it."
The number of patients registered at the Mater Dei Hospital Accident and Emergency department increased by 9.3% or more than 1,500 between December and January since 2009. Mater Dei Hospital’s Chief Executive Officer Joseph Caruana said the hospital had to take extraordinary measures to cope with the influx of patients in January and a new ward is expected to be built in June for another 60 patients.
“We had to change the system within the wards as well as processing methods to see to all patients. The work never stopped and although increased stress was generated ward doctors and A&E staff collaborated together to cope,” Caruana said.
Presenting figures to the press, Caruana said that the increases had been a common trend over the same period of time since 2009. Total attendances between December 2011 and January 2012 was of 18,309, rising by 11.8% over the previous year.