Letters to the editor - September 25, 2021
Communicating with Mater Dei Hospital Mater Dei Hospital must certainly rank among the best in Europe in terms of the professionality of its medical and nursing staff. At that level its care is close to the best that any citizen might wish to have from a national health service. Where, however, it fails abysmally is in the quality of its outside-to-inside telephonic communicating set-up. Let me quote persistent similar experiences: One dials 2545 0000, which is the hospital’s central telephone line. The call does get through (because you get a curt “Sptar Mater Dei” answer). You start waiting and after repeated “Your call is in the waiting line” replies, the central line operator eventually answers you. You request to be connected to some department or other (I will not mention names to be prudent), the central line operator makes the link and here is where one is in for a real saga. The phone/s in the departments ring, and ring and ring… the ringing eventually even switches to that old fax squeaking tone and, meanwhile, the citizen/patient has not yet spoken to anyone who can provide him with answers or some form of service. I have, over the last few days, been through this...