Health centre triaging row escalates as nurses' union goes on warpath
Nurses working at healthcare centres have been instructed by their union to refrain from carrying out a number of jobs as part of industrial action called over a row over triaging of patients. Throughout the pandemic, anyone visiting a healthcare centre is asked a series of simple questions to ensure patients with COVID-19 symptoms do not mix with others. Automated temperature checks are also carried out upon entry. The questions seek to ascertain whether a patient has recently had a fever, been abroad or had any COVID-19-related symptoms. Until recently, it was doctors who were asking patients these questions at the door, after the Malta Union for Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) objected to nurses doing the job. But in the past days, primary health authorities decided doctors should focus on seeing to patients and instead instructed reception personnel at health centres to carry out the triaging process. This prompted MUMN president Paul Pace to issue a memo ordering directives to those in healthcare centres. He argued the triaging process should be done only by qualified medical staff - though the union has previously insisted that this should not done by nurses. In a memo...