Letters to the editor - May 23, 2022

Malta desperately needs ambulatory emergency care

I would like to draw the attention of our healthcare authorities to an article recently published in the Malta Medical Journal, Volume 34, Issue 2: ‘A prospective observational study on emergency medical admissions at Mater Dei Hospital, Malta.’

I co-authored this small study after having witnessed first-hand the benefits of having ambulatory healthcare services during part of my ongoing training in the United Kingdom.

The data analysis suggests that one in every 4.6 patients admitted to a medical bed in Mater Dei Hospital between January 2020 and March 2020 could very well have been managed in an ambulatory emergency setting.

Our burnt-out healthcare professionals need ambulatory care.

Ambulatory emergency care (or AEC) is a healthcare paradigm in which ‘a significant proportion of emergency department attendees are managed on the same or next day without being admitted to a hospital bed’.

Some variants of this model have already been trialled in Malta, however, a formal AEC unit has never been fully set up.

Our local clinicians have never been able to manage low-risk chest pains, low-risk pulmonary embolisms, non-septic...