Front-liners’ efforts appear to have been forgotten, swab volunteer says

Malta’s second wave of COVID-19 cases was a back-handed slap to healthcare workers and volunteers, says one dental surgery graduate, Thomas Grixti, who for the last five months has volunteered at the Luqa swabbing centre.

“All those who sacrificed their time, efforts and their health seem to be well-forgotten through the constant disregard that our medical experts have been facing, despite their repeated warnings,” Grixti said.

Grixti began working at one of Malta’s six swabbing centres back in March, after answering the call for volunteers, while preparing for his final examinations in June. For Grixti volunteering also meant leaving home and in a bid to safeguard his family’s health, isolated himself from them – a move that also made it easier for him to study.

“I felt a certain responsibility to contribute to the workforce that was trying to control the spread of this virus. I realised that all in all, despite the fact that then I was still a university student, I was well-equipped… making the sacrifice and leaving home. Thankfully it had a positive impact on both fronts: my family is in good health, and I have successfully concluded my studies in dental surgery,” he said.

Overworked and underpaid

Working at the swabbing centre has not only been mentally tiring but also physically exhausting. “From a physical and emotional standpoint, swabbing itself has been challenging in and of itself. The skill required to perform nasopharyngeal swabs, in essence, is not rocket-science for healthcare professionals.”

Swabbing centres work on six or 12-hour shifts, adhering to stringent infection control protocols that have made the job that much more difficult. “In our line of work, one fundamental principle stands to assume all patients are infected individuals.”

Grixti recently found himself at the forefront on the discussion over pay, when he took a stand in solidarity with several colleagues over concerns of payment. “Several colleagues of mine have voiced their concern about their salary. I myself have been paid correctly since the start but only up until the July payroll. We were promised that this issue will be resolved, yet we are still waiting for overdue payments to be effected. Frankly, my payment situation is not as bad as my colleagues’, some of whom are due four-figure amounts covering work done between April and July,” he said.

Despite not volunteering for the money, Grixti said he expected both parties to honour an agreement, in this case, a signed contract in the appropriate time.  “My colleagues and I have done exactly that in a diligent manner. It is only fair that both parties pay their end of the bargain. While I have full faith that we will be given what is due to us, at the time of this interview, we are still waiting.”

Critical outlook

But Grixti complained that the disregard from political leaders for the front-liners’ effort on COVID-19 had crossed over to people in the community, “unfortunately in this country, our political parties are generally regarded just like football clubs… this partisan mentality has pervaded most areas of life.”

Grixti said the pandemic had shown him that the public had collectively blinded itself to objective scientific truths, and instead taken their leaders’ words as “godsent”, without considering the possibility that their behaviour could be contradictory, inaccurate or swayed by improperly measured predictors, or just downright wrong. “We have all heard the catchphrases of ‘winning the battle against COVID’, ‘go enjoy summer’, or ‘waves in the sea’… As sad as it all sounds, our leaders stopped leading by example.”

Likewise, Grixti pointed out that the opposition had fared no better with a “profoundly weak check on power.”

“The very nature of our current political framework has failed to protect the political balance our country so desperately needs,” Grixti said, adding that influence of lobbies such as the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association (MHRA) had not helped the situation when its president labelled concerns over health as “project fear”.

While conceding that Robert Abela faced a difficult position so early in his tenure, he credits its cooperation with the public health experts as having been crucial in an effective and well-calculated strategy. But the slippery slope that presaged the second wave is now what everyone is dealing with. “Anyone who is entitled to a democratic vote in this country has the responsibility to objectively identify and analyse what went wrong from an unbiased perspective. Nonetheless, I am more than certain that if public health lobbyists were taken more seriously in decision-making, we would not be facing this exponential increase of positive cases in Malta,” he said.

Grixti said healthcare staff were genuinely doing their best to protect the people most affected by COVID-19: those suffering from mental illnesses worsened by the pandemic, the elderly, chronically ill individuals and other vulnerable people in our society. “You are not forgotten… We sweat out the heat for you. We hold the front-line for you. We are here for you. Do not let the egocentric behaviour of the inconsiderate masses misguide your view towards the importance of our work,” he said.

He also appealed to youths to give credit to their leaders but not fail to question their judgment and actions. “Let us all empower each other to identify what can be improved upon, to analyse the viable methods of such improvement and ultimately, to learn to call a spade, a spade, without any subjective or political bias.”