Malta National OT News

News from Malta, 2020

The MAOT held a national conference in February 2020 on Spinal Cord Injuries. The main scope of the conference was to increase national awareness on Spinal Cord Injuries, to share evidence-based knowledge amongst healthcare professionals and to improve further collaboration amongst persons working in this field. For this conference, two foreign speakers from the London Spinal Cord Injury Centre, one being an Occupational Therapist, facilitated part of the conference. This conference was partially supported through a local NGO fund called Small Initiative Scheme. During this conference we also celebrated 35 years since the association was established in 1985.

In view of COVID-19, the MAOT Annual General Meeting, which was supposed to be held in March, had to be postponed to a later date. We also had to cancel our May 2020 Occupational Therapy activity and CPD session. However, the MAOT is supporting the OT profession in the various initiatives being developed by the different OT departments in Malta.

During this period, the Malta Federation for Professional Associations, organised two online surveys with the aim to measure how the present situation is effecting professionals in Malta. The results from the first survey were published on social media and local news whereby two of the major findings were that self-employed professionals suffered a substantial loss of income while 3 out of 10 professionals are working longer hours. The results from the 2nd survey are being analysed. The Federation, also issued a statement on the present situation, namely focusing on local economy and the importance to have a healthy workforce/ population. The MAOT is a full member of the Federation and our President is the honorary treasurer of the Federation.

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