Juan Ameen, Times of Malta, August 20, 2010 Elderly patients needing specialised medical care were blocking hospital beds, leading to a long wait for beds at the emergency ward, Health Minister Joe Cassar said yesterday. “Unfortunately, there are many elderly people who are taking up beds in hospital because they have nowhere else to go,” he said. Dr Cassar was reacting to a statement by the newly-set up Emergency Nurses Union, which criticised the long wait – of up to six hours, it claimed – for patients to be given a bed in the emergency department. ... Nurses