Minister of Health faces judicial protest over transfer

Acting in his customary gentlemanly ways the Hon Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia met and talked to Ms Anastasi, the nurse who was in disagreement about her issued transfer from Mater Dei to Boffa Hospital. Notwithstanding this, apparently the transfer was allowed to proceed and the reason given has been that the Hospital Authorities were dissatisfied with Ms Anastasi’s past performance. If this is actually the case then I believe these same authorities should be requested to state what actions had been taken so far about such matter. The fact that Ms Anastasi was never subjected to any disciplinary action means one of two things; either these authorities or their predecessors had failed miserably in their duty to maintain discipline or else they are simply trying to give a bad image to Ms Anastasi for their own ends. In any case, a transfer in the public service should never be used as a disciplinary measure taken arbitrarily by anyone without applying the Public Service Commission Disciplinary Regulations. By transferring an officer with a bad performance from one institution to another one would simply be doing a disservice to the receiving end. I know Ms Anastasi personally and can confirm that she has multiple serious family health problems. From my experience as a hospital customer I have found Ms Anastasi to be an efficient Nursing Officer who goes out of her way to give a good service. Having said that, it is unquestionably true that I am not in a position to make out a performance report about her. Yet I strongly believe that a common sense approach should be found in this case without the need for unnecessary confrontation. I also have to note that the Nationalist Party is trying to make a political capital out of this case when it has carried out so many vindictive and abusive transfers during its 25 years in power. Under ex Nationalist Minister Louis Galea and ex Parliamentary Secretary Louis Deguara on 8 August 1995 I was personally transferred as Nursing Officer from St Luke’s to Tal Ferha to join 2 other Nursing Officers and 5 Nurses looking after 5 leprosy residents. On 16 November 2004 the Court of Appeal declared that the transfer was illegal, abusive and ultra vires the government's powers. Here I have to note that in this case no Louis had bothered to meet and talk to me when I presented my judicial protest. Furthermore, when the Government lost its case in the First Hall of the Civil Court it simply appealed to prolong the injustice against me even further.

I think that before committing oneself, we must wait for the whole story. As, since the Ministry said that 'that no section at Mater Dei was ready to accept her' it might be that there is something else that is preoccupying these sections for not wanting to work with her. In one's contract with the civil service it is stated that the Government can deploy you where he deems you are needed due to exigencies of the department.

@L. Sammut: I do not know the details of this case however you are very unjust about your accusation to the Minister. There are National Politics and local politics and such local politics play a major role in such places as Mater Dei, Education, Armed Forces and Police. I know of instances where the staff in various sections simply refused to work with a particular worker in Hospital years ago, and he had to be transferred to another Department in another Ministry because of the embargo. You do not know what went on. But if Minister Farrugia found such a situation on his hands, whose interest has he to defend first, the patients at Mater Dei or the nurse being transferred elsewhere? You can answer this question as much as I can, if you are responsible.

How can we be sure that all sections were asked? The court should ask all managers whether they received an official request to accept this nurse!

When former Minister Anton Tabone and his secretary Evarist Saliba, under the blessing of the then Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami transferred around 70 officials or 50% of the staff from Embassies and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to other departments such as the department of Education, Treasury, Social Security, Posts, Agriculture, and others the excuse was that this was done for the exigencies of the services. The secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also quoted as stating that he preferred to see empty desks than see his former colleagues around. No one uttered a single word whilst those diplomats who were in New York ended at the far end of Floriana, which is half the world's globe away, to an unrelated department! So why all the fuss when one civil servant is moved from Tal-Qroqq to Qormi? Now imagine if the PL were to transfer 50% of the Mater Dei staff what this will implicate, as it would account to as much as 1,500 of the staff at Mater Dei. I do not feel that this movement reported in this article is in any way similar to the 'modus operandi' implanted into the metality of Maltese public service by the PN in 1987.

@L.Sammut Or should we ask why other sections won't accept her?

@L.Sammut Or should we ask why other sections won't accept her?

@ L. Sammut, personally I have NEVER had faith in politicians- any of 'em!

I keep thinking that this is a misprint. "No section was ready to accept her?" What is wrong with the sections at Mater Dei? What is going on Minister Farrugia? Who is running Mater Dei? You, or the Mater Dei Sections? Then one wonders why I don't have much faith in politicians.