Hospital capacity rises to 98%, but Director General assures no risk to patients

Bed capacity at St Bernards Hospital rose to 98% earlier this week after an “unprecedented number of admissions” from a cruise ship, the GHA Director General has confirmed while assuring that there was no risk to patients and normal operations continued.

Director General Paul Bosio said there was a peak in activity at St Bernard’s hospital due to an influx of five admissions from a cruise ship including passengers and a crew member for serious medical needs, which were unrelated and not infectious.

This coupled with the normal admissions from A&E resulted in a peak early this week.

By comparison, Dr Bosio said, last week the hospital was running at 60% to 70% capacity.

“We’re quite small so it doesn’t take much for this to happen,” he said.

Dr Bosio said it was “not ideal” that three elderly long stay patients had been moved to the maternity ward to make room for more admissions and emergencies should they arise, but that this was not an unusual practice in a hospital.

However, he said, it was a “very rare” situation in St Bernard’s hospital to move patients to maternity and this was the first occasion since he has been in post.

He described how there are 11 beds in the maternity ward and “rarely more than one or two” patients.

The decision was made to move three elderly patients, who were screened and considered well, to the ward.

Dr Bosio, who has a doctorate in maternal medicine, said there was “no way” he would endanger mothers and babies.

“I want to reassure everyone about that,” he said.

He added that the elderly patients were kept separate and that nurses had cared for these patients and not midwives.

These elderly patients are some of the over 70 long-stay patients who will be moved to the Rooke elderly care facility in mid-November.

Elderly long-stay patients currently account for around half of the hospital bed capacity, and the move will result in empty beds.

Dr Bosio said this has been communicated to all patients and families, and the move will begin with Mount Alvernia patients being relocated, followed by hospital patients.

“After the Rooke, this will be a thing of the past,” Dr Bosio said.

He said the move will free up hospital beds and with the extra capacity there are plans to repatriate services to Gibraltar.

Last month in an interview with this newspaper, Dr Bosio outlined plans to use the empty bed space to bring services such as advanced imaging, a women’s centre, pacemaker services, and to redevelop A&E, the outpatient’s floor and maternity.

Following discourse on social media regarding bed capacity the GSD called for urgent answers from the Government after reports that a number of long-stay patients at St Bernard’s Hospital had been moved into the maternity ward.

The GSD said this issue raises questions about Minister for Health and Care Gemma Arias-Vasquez’s position that bed shortages have been a thing of the past, and about whether the hospital can accommodate all in-patients safely and what is being done to address the ongoing capacity issues.

“For years we have raised the question of bed shortages at St. Bernard’s Hospital, and the Minister for Health has persistently minimised the issues that staff and patients are experiencing,” Joelle Ladislaus, Shadow for Health said.

“The answers provided in Parliament and in press releases that bed shortages are a thing of the past do not appear to reflect the reality of the situation when there are vulnerable patients being admitted to A&E, waiting hours for a bed to become available, surgical cancellations and now elderly, long-stay patients being moved into a maternity ward.”

Ms Ladislaus added that in response to parliamentary questions Ms Arias-Vasquez said: “The action plan when wards are at capacity is to move patients to other clinical areas or other GHA facilities. There are wards, for example maternity and Rainbow Ward, which cannot be used. Obviously, you cannot mix adults and children, so there are certain wards that cannot be used for these purposes, but the plans which the GHA has in place do allow for patient movement around different wards.”

Ms Ladislaus outlined how in February 2026, the Minister acknowledged in Parliament that patients had been admitted to Calpe ward, which is an infection control ward, for bed-capacity reasons.

“Yet, in August 2026, the Director General, Dr Paul Bosio, told the Gibraltar Chronicle that the GHA does not really have bed capacity issues and had not experienced a bed crisis during his five months in post,” she said.

“It is bad enough that patients are having to be admitted to A&E or that they have been admitted to Calpe Ward in recent months and that there are recurring reports of long waits for admission.”

“To now apparently reach the stage where adult patients are being moved to a specialist ward where there are newborn babies, in apparent breach of the usual protocols according to the Minister’s past comments, suggests serious capacity issues at St. Bernard’s Hospital and greater pressure on acute hospital beds than the Government has previously acknowledged.”

The GSD statement added that is not questioning the professionalism of healthcare workers, but that the responsibility lies with the Government to provide the resources necessary, adequate facilities and appropriate bed capacity, and safe patient and staff ratios.

“There are legitimate questions about whether long-stay patients were placed in an area shared with mothers and their newborns, what infection-control measures and safeguarding structures have been put in place, and why this decision had to be taken,” the GSD said.

“The public deserves no less than full transparency.”