Blackout, bureaucracy deny dying patient contact with family
Raphael Vassallo
Family members of a patient who passed away at Mater Dei Hospital in January have written to this newspaper to complain about what they term ‘gross negligence’ and ‘unfeeling treatment’ meted to their relative by representantives of Melita Cable.
Victor Psaila from Marsaskala was confined to a hospital bed, suffering from a terminal illness, when a technical fault resulted in an interruption of several hours in the power supply to Mater Dei hospital last January.
When power was restored, Psaila found that the supply of the Melita Cable system, connected to his bed, had been damaged by the blackout and was inoperative.
At this point he had less than 24 hours left to live, and the telephone was one of the only ways he could keep in contact with his family.
According to his brother Mario Psaila (see full letter on page 14), efforts to get Melita Cable to replace the damaged cable proved fruitless until it was already far too late. Not only that, but it seems that in spite of the seriousness of the situation, the Psailas were dealt with as nuisances by Melita’s customer care section.
“I tried contacting the Melita Cable offices outside the hospital but the bureaucratic red tape I encountered was unbelievable,” Mario Psaila recalls.
“I tried talking to somebody in authority but it proved to be impossible as the persons answering the phone simple would not connect me to anybody and just told me to talk to the hospital desk. By that time I was being spoken to very arrogantly and my calls were even being placed on hold or just cut off...”
One company technician even refused to replace the power supply with an identical one connected to another (vacant) hospital bed, because it was ‘against company policy’.
The situation was rectified only a short while before Victor Psaila breathed his last.,. and yet Melita Cable has to date refused to issue a refund for the prepaid card, despite the fact that it could not be used.
MaltaToday yesterday sought a reaction from Melita Cable to these allegations, but no reply was received by the time of going to print.
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