Gozo Hospital nurses ordered not to admit patients for elective surgery

Nurses working in the Gozo General Hospital have been ordered by their union to not admit any patients for elective surgery in the Female General Ward.

“After surgery, these patients would end up in corridors of an unacceptable standard,” Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses president Paul Pace said. 

Pace said that half of the occupants of the Female General Ward, the only ward that takes in medical, orthoapedic and surgical female patients, are classified as social cases or elderly patienrts awaiting transfers to elderly residential homes. They said that the ward is supposed to have 33 beds, but currently has 43 beds that include beds in corridors extending up to the main ward. Some female patients are also being placed in the Male General Ward.   

“While the Health Division is planning to open an orthopaedic ward in Gozo General Hospital, the main chronic problems afflicting the patients in Gozo General Hospital are being totally ignored and no sign of being addressed,” Pace said. “While it will "nice" to have an orthopaedic ward in the Gozo General Hospital, it cannot be at the expense of not addressing the main issue of beds for the elderly patients in Gozo. This is evident with the continuous raise of social cases in Gozo General Hospital.”

Pace said that work standards for nurses at the Female General Ward are worse than they were during Florence Nightingale’s days over a century ago.

“The only difference is that the situation is now even worse than those days, since nursing has become much more intensive and "sophisticated",” Pace said. “The MUMN is appealing to the Health Division to start addressing the social cases in Gozo General Hospital by refurbishing the empty wards in GGH to ensure that the situation does not deteriorate even further at the detriment of the patients and the nurses working in the hospital.”