Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses president Paul Pace said that the fraudulent Vitals-Steward hospitals deal “drained all the money”, leaving “patients dying in the halls, corridors and canteen” of Mater Dei Hospital when contacted by The Shift.

Shadow Health Minister Stephen Spiteri similarly warned of a “deteriorating health sector” with “no adequate infrastructure,” spiralling co-morbidity rates and a lack of human resources leading to “a huge decrease in quality” within the public health sector.

Mater Dei Hospital has been experiencing continued space and human resource issues that have resulted in the use of makeshift, supposedly temporary wards such as MIU6 for years despite “camping site” conditions, privacy and safety issues.

The Vitals-Steward hospitals deal, which the court rescinded and ruled to have been “fraudulent” from the outset, was meant to improve the overall health infrastructure through the refurbishment and upgrading of St Luke’s Hospital, Karin Grech Hospital and Gozo General Hospital.

Unpartitioned beds lacking privacy line the MIU6 at Mater Dei Hospital

When asked about the situation at the stop-gap ward, Pace lamented Health Minister Chris Fearne’s attacks on the MUMN last November, when he blamed the shortage of beds at Mater Dei on nurses’ industrial action.

He said that the real issue was a “lack of vision” from the government, whose Vitals-Steward dealings left “repercussions all over the health sector” as the public-private partnership “drained all the money” as it was “being taken by VGH (and Steward Health Care)”.

“Joseph Muscat’s seven years (in office) saw the health sector remaining stagnant,” he said. “It was a scam, nothing came by coincidence” he added, pointing out that despite the current government’s self-victimisation efforts, “the actual victims are the patients dying in MIU6”.

He explained how the ward was initially set up before the Covid-19 pandemic when resources at the hospital had already reached a “saturation point” but that it continued to be used given the hospital’s severe shortages.

Spiteri similarly pointed to a “lack of vision,” explaining how Steward’s failure to meet its contractual obligations led to a “domino effect” in which the “services do not cope with the demand”.

He described how under-resourcing left ancillary health facilities such as Mount Carmel Hospital without their promised refurbishment, “practically leaving 80% of it in an uninhabitable state”.

Spiteri explained how elective orthopaedic surgeries take two to three years to be performed, and that emergency trauma is in an even more dire state.

Mobile showers and unpartitioned hospital beds continue to line Mater Dei’s halls and corridors – Photo: Facebook/Arnold Cassola

The delays and lack of resources lead to “many preventable deaths”, with Spiteri describing how he has come across examples of “80-year-olds being told to fast before surgery, only to have the procedure deferred”, leaving them in a frail state or in some cases as victims of co-morbidity – death due to additional arising complications.

Spiteri said he was not surprised at “the anger arising from hospital workers”, saying that many professionals in the Maltese health service are simply “burnt out”. He described how in some cases, ITU nurses have to contend with two people at a time when they are meant to take care of patients on a one-on-one basis.

Pace described nurses’ recent industrial action as a “100% success”, with more than 4,000 workers having participated following unsatisfactory sectoral agreements with the government which “demoralized and humiliated the entire nursing and midwifery workforce”.

Stressing that the MUMN had ensured its “industrial action did not affect essential services” and that it had kept the affected patients in mind, he warned the saga is “far from over”.