Health Minister sends nursing officer with a 31-year track record an SMS at 1am to say she can’t have her job back
Frances Anastasi, who has been a nursing officer at the general hospital for 31 years (first at St Luke’s and then at Mater Dei) was suddenly transferred to the cancer hospital in Floriana with no warning or explanation.
This is the nursing officer about whom Valerie Borg, known for her public championing of the Labour Party, wrote a shocked letter for publication in the Nationalist Party’s Sunday newspaper.
Now I have received an email from Ms Anastasi (below) which is self-explanatory. You can read her judicial protest here FRANCES – Protest Gudizzjarju 4 7 13
I have recently been vindictively transferred from Mater Dei Hospital to Boffa Hospital.
All this in spite of the fact that I have serious medical problems at home.
Valerie Borg has written on il-Mument highlighting my plight & supporting my cause.
This news item has spread to Net News & In-Nazzjon.
Last Sunday I solidly rebutted the Minister of Health statement that I had not been transferred to Boffa – I even published my payslip which was issued from Boffa Hospital.
Last Monday I was urgently summoned by the minister for a meeting. The meeting was very cordial and I walked out with the Minister’s reassurance that my seven-week ordeal was over and that I would remain stationed at Mater Dei Hospital. All this in front of a witness.
On the morrow at 1 o’clock at night, I received an sms from the Health Minister stating that he was sorry, but nobody was ready to accept me back at Mater Dei Hospital.
This morning I have lodged a judicial protest and I am attaching herewith a copy.
I would truly appreciate if you would publish this at your earliest convenience.
Thanks and kind regards,
Frances Anastasi
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What a muppet, this health minister.
Yesterday in parliament he was going gaga about having drawn up a Gantt chart. Gantt charts are pretty run of the mill when it comes to management and especially IT. It sounded like it was the first time he heard about the things.
This is a hands on minister. Pity he has no authority. Wonders never cease.
Daphne, what’s your email pls? thanks
[Daphne – [email protected]]
Valerie Borg is a very intelligent woman.
This above, is an honest statement.
It’s bad enough that the transfer occurred in the first, but to get Ms. Anastasi’s hopes up again only crush them is despicable.
*first place
I guess you can say that if “Joseph didn’t know about it” the first time, he certainly knew about it the second time round.
Ms.Valerie Borg must have grasped the clearer full picture now.
Well done to her for standing up for what is right and exposing what is wrong.
What Godfrey Farrugia’s message means is:
1. Ms Anastasi was transferred out of Mater Dei, rather than to Boffa hospital;
2. Farrugia can make policy (hence, John Dalli), and now, clearly, can’t run his staff.
‘Gaffe a week Godfrey.’
He looks like a Californian male porn star.
And then they said that vindictive transfers happened under the Nationalist administration.
It is not a vindictive transfer. Don’t blame the Minister because it’s because “nobody was ready to accept me back at Mater Dei Hospital”.
May the new voters who wanted ‘a change’ realise why we didn’t trust Labour. As for the switchers they have no excuse.
Haga biss nibza.
Tiftakar x kienu jaghmlu fis-70s u fl-80s? (Jirrakontali missieri, ghax jien tal-’82).
Jaghtuk transfer (lil-Laburisti qed nghid).
Jistennewk tmur gharkubbtejk quddiemhom.
“Jirrangalek”.
Inti kuntent u tghid kemm hu kbir Mintoff (read Muscat).
” I received an sms from the Health Minister stating that he was sorry, but nobody was ready to accept me back at Mater Dei Hospital”
I see…the Minister issues an order and the administrators tell him they’re not ready to accept it…wow! X’Ministru fih il-boy.
Yes, Godfrey listens.
A total muppet.
Godfrey Farrugia, I understand that you were a very respected MD. May I suggest you resign as Minister and go back to doing what you are good at as soon as possible. It is clear to me that you are not respected by Muscat or by your own management. You are running the risk of losing the respect of your patients. And where will that leave you in 5 years time?
And the Minister said he has an office at Mater Dei. Yet he is unable to control this single problem.
And yesterday in Parliament he was describing how he will be increasing the staff at the A&E and will therefore be creating many opportunities.
What the minister does not realize is that A&E does not require more staff but Mater Dei Hospital requires more beds to clear out the backlog of patients blocking the corridors.
Another thing: does this minister and anyone involved in transfers to Boffa Hospital, not realize that oncology nursing is a specialty and not everyone is suited or willing to work there?
This happened with the previous administration as well about 18 months ago and caused a few problems to say the least.
Beyond shocking! Of all the people, of all the ministers, HE should know much much better … especially if the plight of this poor woman is as described by Valerie Borg in her letter. No one ready to accept HER back at MDH? Is this guy for real?
The civil service is currently choc a bloc with directors who are not needed (it seems that they’re not needed because no work is being referred to them), directors and assistant directors who were appointed under the previous administrations and who have now been sidelined (read redundant bil-pulit) and were all but told that their services are no longer needed. Tell me Minister Farrugia, do you know how many directors and civil servants are lying idle at the moment, with empty desks in front of them, because no work is being referred to them?
Are you trying to sell the idea that Ms Anastasi is not NEEDED (who cares about WANTED) anywhere at MDH, when every time the Prime Minister speaks he mentions his dismay and shock at the state of affairs in the hospital – namely owing to the understaffing in most wards?
I would like to know what Mr Lino Spiteri has to say to this, to the (Tall) Prime Minister of Malta.
I am certain that this will NOT be an item on TVM News tonight! Not with Reno the puppet Biugeja as Head of News.
Min jikkmanda f’Mater Dei – l-administrators jew il-Ministru?
Dan ghalli jista jkun hu dak l-istess Ministru li rajnieh jibki ghax telaq il-pazjenti tad-distrett tieghu biex jsir Ministru?
Sensittiv veru.
Il-Mater Dei ma jimxix minghajr Franco Mercieca u minghajr Frances Anastasi iva. Ara kemm m humiex arroganti tal-PL.
I happen to know Ms Anastasi and can vouch for her dedication to her work notwithstanding the serious medical problems that she faces at home. As Ms Valerie Borg declared in her letter to “Il-Mument”, Ms Anastasi’s transfer was a vindictive one and when such a declaration comes from Ms Valerie Borg then this transfer must definitely be doubly vindictive.
Do I read correctly that Ms Anastasi was summoned to the Minister’s office for a “very cordial meeting” when he (the Minister) assured her that “my (her) seven-week ordeal was over and that I (she) would remain stationed at Mater Dei Hospital” and all this in front of a witness?
What Minister is this who later goes back on his word and informs Ms Anastasi that “nobody was ready to accept me (her) back at Mater Dei Hospital”?
Does this case not make you cry Mr Minister? Where are your balls Mr Minister especially in such a humanitarian case? Balls, please, show us your balls Mr Minister.
That was all ‘biki ta kukkudrill’
Serquhomlu.
“On the morrow at 1 o’clock at night, I received an sms from the Health Minister stating that he was sorry, but nobody was ready to accept me back at Mater Dei Hospital.”
Doesn’t he have “The buck stops here” on his desk?
Or “If you mess around I’ll send Marlene”?
Maybe the newly appointed consultant will find her an alternative placement in the Bahamas
Since when is it required for other workers to determine who works in the same place? Does this mean that all of the staff at that particular department are against Mrs. Anastasi?
That is only his feeble excuse. Does it mean that even Ms Valerie Borg does not want her? Then why on earth did she write the letter for. Liars just plain simple liars the whole lot. Joseph and all his puppets have been lying through their teeth. What a shameful government.
“Giet infurmata verbalment illi see tigi trasferita “. Why “verbalment”? Shouldn’t transfers be done by means of a formal letter?
Reading through the Times comments on this issue is a horrifying experience. Many seem to think that a nurse can just work in any area so she should not complain and just get on with it. What ignorance! Do they think that nursing is simply giving the patient some pills, washing and feeding him/her?
Many nurses are brilliant in certain areas but find it horribly difficult to work in others. Nurses are not robots, their capabilities are based on coursework, nursing experience, further education, personal aptitudes and life experiences. I sure wish that every single commentator were made to work a day in the shoes of a good nurse, assessing the needs and doing what is required of the nurse daily – attempting to make the patient whole or as whole as is possible in the circumstances of his health. Can anyone work with a dementia patient for example – of course not, can anyone work in oncology?
The ignorance of anyone who treats a nurse as a pair of hands is simply fueling the fire which will burn them or their ilk when they are nursed by someone who is ‘just a pair of hands’.
Those who think that nurses should just get with it when they know that optimal practice can be compromised, provided that they get within a foot of a book, should perhaps read Sandy Summers’s arguments on why this portrayal of nursing is putting lives at risk!!
Does this amount to undue harassment by both employer and employees?
The employer “should have known better” both in the initial case and in the repeated case required to establish harassment.
This is where the laws should be revised.
They are far too lenient and the onus on the employee who goes through the ordeal places far too many conditions on that employee at the time that the employee is already suffering the unnecessary consequences of that harassment.
Going to court about the matter only places more of the burden on the employee and possibly puts that employee’s life on hold for the amount of time required to sort out the matter. In Malta this can take years.
Why isn’t there a more serious and specialised approach to such matters by both the Police and the legal system?
One serious complaint ought to be enough for proper, not waffly – as is current, action to be taken against any and all of the persons involved.
I also happen to know Frances Anastasi and for someone to say that no one wants her at Mater Dei Hospital is the most disgraceful and unethical comment to read.
She gives her all to the patients and her fellow colleagues, she goes out of her way to help anyone – is it possible that no other department requires her services at Mater Dei or are all the staff, consultants and administrators included worried that if they voice support for Frances they will be in someone’s black book?
Well if the latter is true than we are in for a hefty rough time till at least the next election.
Can we have the name referred to as ‘hadd’ma jridek? is he above the minister?