Editorial TMID: Scarcity – The Malta Independent
State agencies for social workers are having to resort to ‘quick fixes’ to address the significant lack of social workers in the country, by bringing in unqualified people for the role, said PN Deputy Graziella Attard Previ to The Malta Independent on Sunday.
Social workers perform very important duties. Attard Previ, who herself is an elderly social worker, said that there are significant problems in the social work industry that do not attract new people to the sector. She mentioned more competition and more lucrative jobs elsewhere, which resulted in the shortage, and that there are better ‘vocations’ with better pay. She also said that social work is stressful work that is not considered as prestigious as other professions, and that social workers are also underpaid, which is the biggest deterrent for prospective social workers.
Such a situation paints a disturbing picture. The fact that many sectors are facing a lack of human resources amplifies this issue. Not just in the private sector either. There is also a shortage of nurses, police officers.
When talking about the lack of nurses for example, this situation was a point of contention between the nurses’ union – the MUMN, and the government. Following the recent injunction against the union’s directives regarding San Vincent de Paul and nursing homes that were preventing the entry of new residents, the MUMN said: “Due to this mandatory injunction, the nurses who work in the SVPR and in the old people’s homes are expected to work again against. all the odds that 37 patients receive care from one nurse. Residents of the SVPR who need special care will be threatened again since one nurse can never cope with the large number of patients in each ward of the SVPR. we do not mention that in the Homes, one nurse will again have 80 residents; which is not good at all and can easily lead to malpractice.”
The government’s need to lift the directives is understandable in order to free up beds at Mater Dei Hospital – an issue that was being built, but the lack of nurses also needs to be addressed.
So then what is the way forward? On the one hand, the government may have to review the working conditions and pay packages of essential professions. In this current period of international financial issues, with rising inflation, this is more and more difficult.
But a lack of professions that are so necessary in society is a serious problem and must be solved.
The government should probably start by reducing any excess burden and really check if all the people who are employed by the government in non-essential jobs are really needed. In today’s day and age there are shortages in the private sector so really and truly people like this will probably find a job pretty quickly. Perhaps the government could even help find jobs in the private sector for such people if such a move is deemed too politically problematic. Such funds can then be set aside to help improve the pay packages of essential workers.
But this will probably not be enough, and the government will still need to do more.