Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1330252
7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 JANUARY 2021 NEWS MATTHEW AGIUS MUMN president Paul Pace yesterday said his union was disappointed at see- ing its members' concerns about disor- ganisation in the COVID vaccination programme being dismissed by the Primary Health Care (PHC) CEO as "unfounded", despite reports of chaos. Pace said the union had flagged seri- ous administrative issues on the logis- tics of distributing the vaccine but had been ignored. The primary problem faced by health- care professionals administering the vaccine is the fact that the three-min- ute gap between time slots is proving to be insufficient. "We told them this was going to happen," Pace said. "Yesterday was chaos. We were go- ing to throw away 50 vaccines at Cos- picua because the lists were outdated. We had to take them to Floriana. Flo- riana was so overwhelmed – through no fault of the people- that social dis- tancing went out of the window." The Floriana Health Centre alone saw 220 vaccine appointments yes- terday, he said. Other health centres had many no-shows because the list of patients was out of date, with many elderly patients having since died. The Pfizer vaccine needs 15 min- utes to be prepared and this appears to have not been taken into account when allocating appointments. There are other problems too. Some health centres have no lift and elderly patients must climb stairs. The winter weather also means that the elderly patients would have to take off several layers of clothing before being able to be vaccinated. "We are talking about patients 85 years old and above…the process is much longer than a simple influenza vaccine." "Yesterday (Friday) we had a disas- ter. After vaccination patients must be observed for 15 minutes, but the crowded lists meant that social dis- tancing was not observed. We had el- derly patients queuing outside in the cold and rain. We almost had to throw away vaccines due to no-shows, peo- ple waiting for over two hours. Frus- trated patients were throwing chairs in the Floriana Health Centre at a point and the police had to be called to assist." Pace said that the issues had been raised two days before but he was ig- nored and told not to be so concerned with the "nitty gritty," by the Primary Health Care management. Pace accused the PHC CEO of having "no intention of hearing the issues of her nurses let along addressing them." "PHC was just looking at numbers without going into the logistics of each and every Health Centre. Having angry clients putting pressures on the nursing when such vaccine needs to be prepared in a quiet calm atmosphere shows how detached PHC manage- ment is from the clinical aspect. Not to mention that elderly people were left in the rain, crowded together with no ways to maintain social distance shows again another failure of PHC." The union announced that it will be declaring an industrial dispute unless several conditions are met immediate- ly. The conditions include more secu- rity guards stationed at every health centre and all vaccination lists giv- en to Health Centre to be verified by phoning all patients to check if they are alive, willing to come and inform clients to adhere to their time slot. In addition, time intervals needed to be more spread out more, it said. Cur- rently nurses are vaccinating five pa- tients every 15 minutes. Nurses also needed breaks, Pace said. "These factors are not taken into account." Nurses complaints were ig- nored by PHC management, he said – being told that it was "your problem." The union was later given an appoint- ment with the PHC on the 21 January, explained Pace. "We can only cater for so much. We have to be professional, this can't be rushed. We know our input so don't press us with a huge number of ap- pointments." Failure to listen to the union would lead to industrial action, Pace said. "We will work to rule." "If such claims are ignored, MUMN will be safeguarding the health and safety of its members by other ways within the law. It is clear that Prima- ry Health Care Management failed to address these issues due to a CEO who would not even consider consultation prior starting the vaccination pro- gramme," Pace said. MUMN said it will be meeting nurs- es working at the Primary Health Care to investigate this and other difficul- ties being faced by the nurses "since it is clear that the issues of the nurses have always been ignored by Primary Health Care Management," it added. A request for comment sent to the PHC remained unanswered by the time we went to print. Nurses union threatens industrial action over COVID-19 vaccine 'chaos'