Department of Health – Mater Dei Hospital
Structure, Functions and Responsibilities
Mater Dei Hospital (MDH) is the only general acute teaching hospital in Malta. It is the main
entity that provides acute health care services within the Maltese public health care system.
Another important aspect of Mater Dei Hospital’s remit is to provide facilities for learning,
training and research in collaboration with academic institutions, mainly the University of
Malta (training courses for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and many other health
professionals).
Our vision is that Mater Dei Hospital will be a centre of excellence in the provision of
efficient and effective acute patient-centred quality health care, that it will achieve high levels
of patient and staff satisfaction and that it will enhance teaching, research & innovation.
Mater Dei Hospital has 928 inpatient beds, around 86 day care beds and 4172 staff, both
clinical staff and support staff. Mater Dei Hospital caters for all medical specialities,
amongst which one can mention Medicine, Surgery, Orthopaedics, Cardiac Services,
Ophthalmology, Dentistry, Paediatrics, Neuroscience and Obstetrics & Gynaecology.
Apart from inpatient services, the hospital offers emergency services (Casualty), day care
services, outpatient services and diagnostic services, many of which are unique in Malta. The
hospital has three intensive care units – a general adult ICU, a cardiac ICU and a neonatal /
paediatric ICU.
Current activity levels (some examples):-
- 1935 outpatient appointments per day
- 329 patients seen per day at the Emergency Department
- 101 emergency inpatient admissions per day
- 171 booked inpatient admissions per day (inc. renal unit and nursery cots)
- 141 surgical operations carried out per day
- 200 patients go to the Pharmacy daily
- 20,997 laboratory tests are carried out daily
- 650 radiology tests daily
The recurrent expenditure of the hospital is in the region of €150 million per annum.
The greatest challenges that are faced by the hospital are:-
- to optimise the use of the available facilities in the hospital to increase the quantity
and the quality of clinical work
- to increase the number of nursing, medical and other professional staff to allow for
service expansion, in the number of surgical operations
- to ensure that the hospital’s facilities are used by patients requiring acute care, while
decentralising those health care services that would best be given in the community or
in other health care institutions
- a very high and continuously increasing workload
- to deal with very high expectations of the public, the authorities and the staff
themselves
General Description of the Categories of Documents Held
Purpose of Mater Dei Hospital Documents and Information
Mater Dei Hospital addresses the needs of our patients, both present and future ones.
Documents and information held at Mater Dei Hospital are there to serve this care-giving
mission. Information in an acute general teaching hospital like this one will be about the:-
- wellness
- illness
- disease
- treatment, and
- healing
For the hospital to operate, the need may arise to gather and use other types of information.
Mater Dei Hospital holds information on paper and in computerised information systems.
Much of this data falls under the categories of personal data and sensitive personal data,
protected in the interests of patients by the Data Protection Act.
Mater Dei Hospital originates, receives, and uses Documents and Information
Our information may be of internal or external origin, e.g. received from other Hospitals,
Clinics and/or Universities, and may be addressed to such organizations, or be for internal
use. Information may originate from individuals or organizations, public or private; these
may be Maltese or foreign, and be located in Malta, in other EU States, or further afield.
Documents and information may originate from, or have been addressed to, the various
clinical, scientific, engineering and administrative functions and roles within Mater Dei
Hospital, as per the organizational chart, and the roles and functions shown.
Such information / documents held by Mater Dei Hospital may be about wellness, lifestyles,
disease, employment and/or business activities, treatment and medication, and may appear
in:-
- Clinical notes
- Forms
- Records
- FilesManuals
- Studies
- Plans
- Correspondence
- CircularsSpecifications, and
- Reports
Depending on the operational requirement of the hospital. Such information / documents may
relate to:-
- imaging and laboratory tests
- human resources
- administration
- finance
- information technology
- logistics
- engineering
- infrastructure
- biomedical sciences.
The guiding principle in collecting, using, and sharing such documents and information shall
be our health-care giving mission, the rights of patients, and observance of the Law,
including the Freedom of Information Act, legislation providing for professional secrecy and
the Data Protection Act.
Addressing requests in terms of the Freedom of Information Act
Members of the public requesting access to documents held should contact the FOI Officer
on 22992381 or via e- mail address foi.healthpolicy@gov.mt.