Health associations call for evidence-based evaluation of measures timesofmalta.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timesofmalta.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The government must act to address the latest record-breaking spike in new COVID-19 cases, the nurses union said on Tuesday, warning a lockdown could soon be the only solution. The government is taking things too lightly. Yes, a lockdown should be used as a last resort but the way things are heading, we re soon reaching that point, Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) head Paul Pace said.
The government has resisted calls for a lockdown, insisting this would be futile and that measures in place are enough to keep the situation under control.
Health Minister Chris Fearne also previously dismissed introducing a so-called circuit breaker - a short lockdown to help bring down numbers and stop the situation from spiraling out of control. Instead, he pointed to the vaccine roll out as the solution.
Updated 1.45pm with Justice Minister s reaction
Surgeons are being forced to postpone dozens of operations every month because they are being summoned to testify in court, according to one of them who was called to give evidence twice in as many weeks.
Hermann Borg Xuereb, an ENT, head and neck surgeon, has called for the regular use of online testimony that would allow surgeons to give evidence from a room within the hospital without disrupting their entire workday to the detriment of patients.
Borg Xuereb last week received a summons to appear in court to testify in a case at 2pm. This disrupted his day of scheduled operations planned from 8am to 6pm and led to the cancellation of three interventions.
Doctors have called for Malta to phase out all flights from the UK in an attempt to restrict the spread of a highly-infectious coronavirus variant.
Currently, Maltese nationals and residents are allowed to fly from Britain to Malta, with strict protocols on arrival including multiple tests and a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
But the Medical Association of Malta (MAM) said the government should go one step further and completely block travel from the UK.
“The advice we would give as MAM is to repeat the protocols used for repatriation flights that were organised back in March of this year,” the union’s president, Martin Balzan, said.