MDH blames trade unions for lack of electronic validation system

Mater Dei Hospital has attributed the high rate of overtime incurred by employees of the payroll section as the result of shortage of personnel.

According to the National Audit Office, a review of Mater Dei Hospital's wage bill showed the amount budgeted for allowances and overtime was overshot by more than €700,000 in 2011.The report also noted the high level of overtime worked by hospital staff, which was not always authorised.

In some cases hospital workers doubled their salary with overtime payments, with the highest overtime earners being employees in the payroll office. The NAO found that four employees in the payroll office earned an average of €28,700 each for overtime in 2011. The officer in charge of authorising and certifying overtime at Mater Dei Hospital "happened to receive" the highest amount for overtime, clocking up more than €35,000 in extra payments.

But in a reaction, the hospital said that the shortage of human resources was a main issue, which in turn gave way to overtime.

"Today there are three officers and seven clerks catering for the salaries of over 4,000 employees," the management said in a statement.

The management said that computerisation of this activity is under way but the "complexities due to the wide variety of different salary and allowance arrangements in the different professions are making this implementation long and complex". 

Mater Dei said that this is the reason why a high rate of overtime was undertaken in the salaries section. 

"Manual checking and computation of the variety of allowances of such a huge number of employees and rosters takes time," the hospital said, adding that MDH management has repeatedly attempted to institute a mechanism where all MDH employees punch in and out of work using an electronic attendance validation system.

"Such requests were repeatedly turned down by the unions. With such a system, control and expediency would be easily feasible resulting in many less human errors," the hospital said.

The management said that during 2011 and 2012 a significant effort on the control and use of overtime was undertaken and this resulted in a significant decrease in overtime use over the previous years, through a water tight approval process and much stricter controls, ensuring that overtime is carried out only where services need to be delivered to guarantee patient safety.

"All discrepancies discovered in the audit have been corrected and any overpayment or underpayment sorted out. There is also a new system that ensures that such overpayments or underpayments do not occur," the management confirmed.

It went on to add that an ongoing union directive in the dentistry department advising dentists not to sign the attendance sheets with times in and out is not helping to sort the matter. 

Questions raised about a diving allowance granted to nurses has been justified as being an allowance given to the nurses who work in the hyperbaric unit.

"This unit, which is one of the most modern in Europe, is not only used to assist divers but also to deliver specialised treatment to, amongst other, diabetic patients," the management said.

Mater Dei attached this photo 'to better explain the set up'