Not a single nursing section in Malta working at full complement – MUMN president

There is not a single nursing section in Malta or Gozo working at full complement at the moment, president of the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) Paul Pace has told The Malta Independent.

The nursing shortage on the island has been known for quite some time, but Pace says that the situation is getting worse as the shortage is growing. “There are more people leaving the profession than joining.”

On average, he said, Mater Dei Hospital is losing around two to three nurses every week, and this is taking into account the foreign nurses being brought in.

The situation, the MUMN president said, needs to urgently be addressed. Pace told this newsroom that around around 15 per cent of the nursing workforce is now foreign.

Asked what needs to be done to at least begin to fix the situation, he highlighted that the University of Malta currently requires an A-level in Biology for the nursing degree and an O-level biology for the nursing diploma, which he says does not make sense and makes it harder for people to enter the nursing profession.

“Many other countries do not require an A- or O-level equivalent specifically in biology to enter a nursing course. Instead of requiring any science subject, they went with the specific biology requirement.” Northumbria University, which has a course being taught at MCAST, also requires biology but is willing to change, he said.

“

When negotiating a collective agreement, the government needs to consider the retention of current nurses while also making the profession more attractive, rather than neutralising it by providing the same agreement conditions to others

Pace also took aim at collective agreement issues. He said that the scope of the nursing collective agreements are to make the profession as attractive as possible, to incentivise young people to join the nursing profession. Unfortunately, he said, young people are going for the other professions in medicine, as they do not need to work as many hours and it does not make sense for them to become nurses. He said collective agreements made with the government for nurses are also being extended to the other medical professions. This, he said, results in the nursing collective agreements not remaining attractive enough for young people, and a young person might opt instead to become a radiographer or a speech therapist or a number of other such professions, instead of choosing nursing.

It is also a vicious cycle, as given the shortage, nurses are having to work longer hours, he said. When negotiating a collective agreement, the government needs to consider the retention of current nurses while also making the profession more attractive, rather than neutralising it by providing the same agreement conditions to others, he said, as that makes it pointless in terms of attracting more people to the profession.

Another issue, he said, is that the nursing salary in Malta is somewhere in the middle in terms of EU-wide nursing salaries, with Ireland, Luxembourg and Nordic countries at the top. As such, some Maltese nurses are emigrating to those countries. Ireland has become the number one destination Maltese nurses consider leaving for, he said.

In addition, a number of foreign nurses who come to Malta require certain extra training, and are given a bridging course, but the issue is that some of these nurses will remain in Malta for a short time before going to the higher paying countries.