A week ago I fractured my elbow having tripped in a pothole on Qui-Si-Sana Seafront. I realised from the acute pain in my elbow and wrist that something was terribly wrong. I requested my sister (who was with me) to take me to the Mater Dei Emergency Department. She advised me against it as she had heard that there were enormous delays. I insisted on the state-of-the-art Mater Dei, and we arrived there some 20 minutes later. I was dropped off at the emergency entrance whilst my sister found a parking place. This took a good 10 minutes.
In the meantime I looked for some staff to advise me where the Emergency Ward was – I could see none so I ventured to the only operating desk, that of Melita Cable. I asked the staff at the Melita desk to guide me to customer care. The reply was followed with a great laugh: “Ilhom li telqu, Sinjura” (“They left ages ago”) – it was 7:30pm. Melita informed me where the Emergency Department proper was to be found. My sister by now had arrived and after a further 10-minute walk we arrived at the emergency area in the lower ground floor. Over here I advised the personnel that I was in terrible pain and that I needed urgent attention, and possibly an immediate x-ray.
There was nothing doing. I was informed that I had to join the other 50-odd waiting suffering souls and take my place in the queue. I simply called it a day and asked my sister to take me to the Emergency Unit at a Private Hospital where, I may add that the attention and care here was excellent, caring and professional.
What impressed me most on my first, and hopefully last visit, to the Emergency Department at the Mater Dei were the scruffy walls; discarded top-up cards, litter strewn all over the floor right next to a garbage bin; the vast areas of unused space, and the excessive wastage of energy/electricity. But, by far my most damning observation of all, was that there was no visible sign of any medical or lay hospital staff!

Milica Micóvíc
Sliema

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