Source: The Malta Independent, 26 February 2020.

The Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses reiterated today that Malta is not prepared to face a possible outbreak of Coronavirus on the islands.

Information given during a press conference on Tuesday exposed Malta’s lack of preparedness, the MUMN said.

It was totally untrue 350 nurses from Emergency Department, Intensive Therapy Unit and the Infectious Disease Unit have been trained. Such units have only 220 nurses, the MUMN said.

From yesterday’s conference it emerged that the preparatory plan is to have only 14. That implies that Malta and Gozo is only prepared for 14 cases only. If an airplane or a cruise liner would result with more than 14 potential infected patients (as happened abroad were 100s were infected both on planes and on cruise liners) Malta would not have the facilities nor the nurses to attend to such patients, the MUMN said.

MUMN said it was proven right that nurses are not being trained nor prepared for patients suffering from Coronavirus. 

MUMN was also proven right that no alternative isolation units were mentioned outside MDH which should have been the focus of any preparation plan for Coronavirus.