Nurses union to publish list of 'paid treatments' at Mater Dei, sues Sunday Times for libel over 'therapy scam' claims

The MUMN yesterday filed a libel suit against the Sunday Times, after reporting a police investigation into a scam in which an unnamed, top MUMN official and a salesman charged between €700 and €1,000 for therapy not provided by the state, and leading them to believe it was free.

“The patients – mostly amputees recovering at Mater Dei where healthcare is free – were encouraged to use equipment to speed up the healing of deep wounds. They were then charged between €700 and €1,000,” the Sunday Times reported.

In one case, an elderly man with little money was served with an invoice of over €700 which he could not afford to pay, an inquiry revealed.

The internal inquiry into the racket, commissioned by the Health Ministry last May, has just been completed and the findings were handed over to the Police Commissioner last Friday.

The health ministry also ordered an internal investigation last April when a patient turned up with an invoice expecting to be reimbursed for the VAC Therapy – a fairly new technique also known as negative pressure wound therapy – which he received at Mater Dei. The ministry handed the inquiry report to the police.

The MUMN denied the existence of a scam, saying the Sunday Times article was “fallacious” and “riddled with inaccuracies”.

The MUMN said it would be releasing information on treatments being offered by Mater Dei against payment, saying consultants were prescribing medicines that were out of stock from the government pharmacies.

The MUMN said the “top MUMN official… only chairs a committee” in side the union and declared that no nurse “has, directly or indirectly, made even the slightest gain out of this situation,” it insisted.