Keep Mater Dei COVID-free to ease stress on health service, Dr Frank Portelli says
The medical doctor and former PN MP – who has emerged as a non-official source of COVID-19 information on social media - has called on the authorities to move virus patients out of MDH
Medical doctor, and former PN MP, Dr Frank Portelli, has called on the Government to move COVID-19 patients out of Mater Dei Hospital (MDH) to reduce the risk of viral spread across other wards and to other patients.
In a video posted on Facebook on Saturday, Dr Portelli – who is the sole director of St Philip’s Hospital – has claimed that MDH has become “a hot-spot” for the infection. “You can go there for an operation and risk getting COVID-19”, he said.
“Right now, all our hospitals are housing COVID-19 patients. Positive patients should be housed in one place, such as St Luke’s, and not spread out over six hospitals.”
During the initial spring soft lockdown, Dr Portelli had offered his hospital, which has been closed for the past ten years, to the Government to treat COVID-19 patients. At the time, he had said the hospital was being offered " to the Maltese people on a non-profit basis” on the basis of the lease agreement that was signed in 2012.
This weekend’s video did not make any mention of St Philip’s Hospital. However, his proposal reflects some of the concerns recently raised by Paul Pace, the President Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses, who underlined the need for more nursing staff to cope with the pandemic. “This crisis brought about a new scenario,” Mr Pace said, looking back at events from March. “People were being put into quarantine… and nurses were the largest category: at one point, there were around 1,000 nurses in quarantine.”
In the meantime, Dr Portelli also called on Prof. Charmaine Gauci to “show her mettle” and not allow herself to be cowed by politicians. “She must be firm and not be afraid of any Prime Minister. She has a lot of responsibility on her shoulders and it cannot be that politicians dominate her because certain businessmen accuse people like me of spreading fear.”
“We’re in an economic crisis because we slipped up and the government must be responsible. We were doing well at the start, but government isn’t taking the advice of front-liners.”
The past few days in Malta have seen an exponential rise in the number of COVID-19 cases. Sources say the ITU is almost full, and while, the authorities have said additional ITU beds have been prepared, medical experts have underlined the lack of properly trained nursing staff to man the beds.