WATCH: Woman Left On Floor After ‘Passing Out’ Outside Ħal Far Centre Following Freezer Incident
An incident stemming from access to cold water during summer allegedly ended with a woman passed out on the floor before an ambulance was called to remove her.
“I was trying to renew my ID in Ħal Far, near the Family Centre, and a resident there wanted to take a fridge or freezer in,” Mohamed Ali, a migrant who lives in Malta, told Lovin Malta.
“The woman said: ‘I want to take this fridge in, it’s summer, I have a baby, and we have no cool water inside,” Ali continued. “A manager soon came out and told her she knew she couldn’t bring it in according to her contract, and that she could go buy cold water from outside the centre.”
The freezer outside the gate
The woman responded by telling the workers that she’d either enter with the fridge or that they need to give her her baby and call the police.
At some point, the gates were reportedly opened to a vehicle pass, where she tried to push the large fridge in. She was stopped, and it was at this point that she had a “hysterical attack” and ended up passing out in the sun.
“They left her there for about three minutes, just laying in the sun, before eventually saying that she was ‘faking it’.”
“I couldn’t leave her on the floor, so I put water on her face and checked if she was conscious,” Dali said, before he moved her to the side, into the shade.
A staff nurse was sent out eventually, according to Dali, before an ambulance was called for her. However, Dali was left shocked at how the resident was treated, especially after she was accused of “faking it” after passing out in the sun.
“When police arrived, I was told to wash my hands. I thought it was cause of COVID-19, but they told me it’s because she might be HIV positive, and they went to put on double gloves and a whole plastic suit… I was shocked, trying to tell them that there was no blood or liquids to pass the virus,” Dali said.
While he wasn’t sure what the procedure was to get a fridge inside an open centre, he questioned the way it was handled.
“Don’t they have the right to a cold drink? She had even said, if you have a fridge in the office, we could use that, we don’t need to have our own…”
A spokesperson from Agency for the Welfare of Asylum Seekers (AWAS) confirmed the incident and said the woman has since been discharged from Mater Dei.
“An ambulance was called to the Hal Far Open Centre to assist a resident who required medical assistance,” they said.
“Minutes before the incident the woman was insisting to bring a chest freezer inside the centre. Migrants residing in this centre have access to hot or cold water in addition to three meals a day. It is not logistically possible to have appliances of a certain size in each accommodation unit,” they continued.
“Residents also make use of shared facilities provided for by the centre’s administration,” AWAS ended.
At the time of publishing, the cooler remained outside the centre.
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