Health Ministry refuses to answer to allegations of emergency operating theatre mismanagement

Julian Bonnici Elective surgeries are taking place within the emergency operating theatre at Mater Dei due to consultants overbooking available operating theatres in order to cut down on waiting time, sources speaking to The Malta Independent on Sunday have said.

When asked by this newspaper about the current situation, the Ministry of Health pointedly refused to answer a number of questions but said that while one theatre may be kept available for such procedures, “Mater Dei has never had a specific theatre reserved only for emergencies.”

In 2012, however, former Health Minister Joe Cassar and the management at Mater Dei Hospital had allocated an operating theatre specifically for emergency procedures with a view to offering the best possible quality of care to patients.

At the time, Dr Cassar said that the emergency theatre would operate purely on a basis of priority, depending on the case in question.

A nurse also explained at the time that the number of emergency procedures varied from day to day, and there could be anything between two to ten operations.

Dr Cassar also insisted that im- mediacy is important to patients, and genuine emergency cases should be treated as such.

However, this newsroom was also informed that if a ward were to face an emergency situation – such as from a complica- tion related to surgery – while the theatre was in use, this might cause a delay. It was also claimed that in the case of an emergency operation, which may last many hours, the surgeon would first carry out the shorter, elective procedures scheduled before calling down the emergency patient.

When asked, the Ministry of Health once again refused to answer any questions.

The allegations raise a number questions surrounding the reduction in waiting time for surgeries which Minister of Health Chris Fearne and Mater Dei CEO Joseph Zarb Adami had announced in August 2015 and reiterated in May 2016.

In May 2016 the Medical Association of Malta painted a very different picture, claiming that not only has waiting time for surgery not been reduced, but the situation is actually worse than it was before. The union even went so far as to add that critical parts of the hospital had been overstretched.