A 75-year-old woman was forced to wait for three whole days with a broken wrist at Mater Dei’s casualty unit before being forced to check in to a private hospital for emergency surgery that cost her the princely sum of €3,800.
Ellen Micallef was left distressed and in pain for three days, despite doctors seeing to her and scheduling an operation that never took place, leaving her with no choice but to go to St James Hospital for emergency surgery.
Failed by the State hospital, Micallef paid for Mater Dei’s inefficient service by footing a horrific private hospital bill she should have never paid, had doctors seen to her broken wrist immediately.
On the evening of Sunday 8 June, Micallef fell down and broke her wrist. She was immediately rushed to Mater Dei’s emergency department.
She waited for four hours before anyone saw to her injury while her family was told by the staff on duty that she was not the only patient who needed assistance. And yet there were only two patients in the emergency room waiting for assistance, her family told MaltaToday
Finally a nurse took some blood samples. Soon after a doctor saw to Micallef’s wrist. Finding the bone was out of place, the doctor pulled it slightly back into place and put a temporary half-cast plaster and informed Micallef she had to return to hospital the following morning at 8am as an immediate operation had to be performed because the wrist was badly fractured.
The next morning on Monday 9 June, she went back to Mater Dei at 8am as requested, but nine hours later at 5pm nobody had yet seen to her apart from taking her blood samples again – because the first samples had been lost.
Waiting once again in extreme pain, the staff nurses emerged once again to take the blood samples because they had lost the second batch.
With nobody seeing to her again, Micallef was told to come the following day.
“When we asked what time she would be seen to, the doctor on duty said that he could not guarantee that the operation would be done the following day and said it could take several days before she is seen to, depending on whether there was a slot to fit her into,” her son Philip Micallef told MaltaToday.
On Tuesday 10 June, Micallef decided she could not take the pain anymore, and her family decided she would have to be checked in to a private hospital.
“We did not want to risk waiting several days with no guarantee she would be seen to, so we decided to take her to St James Hospital in Sliema in order to have her wrist seen to,” Philip Micallef said.
Micallef was operated on the following day on Wednesday 11 June – by the same surgeon who had been on duty at Mater Dei the previous day.
Her emergency surgery cost her a hefty hospital bill of €3,800.
“I sincerely hope nobody has to go through the pain and suffering our mother had to go through to have a broken arm seen to,” Philip Micallef said.
“It is really a shame that we have a state of the art hospital but a complete lack of customer care and efficiency at Mater Dei Hospital.
“Who is going to reimburse us for the expenses that should have been covered by the State in our new, so called ‘state of the art’ new hospital?”

mvella@mediatoday.com.mt