I am not quite sure I fully understand Jean Pierre Farrugia’s clarification regarding sick leave certification (TMIS, 14 June).

There is no shortage of family doctors on the island. The only shortage of “family” doctors that exists exists exclusively within the NHS. I do, however, forecast a reduction and ultimate demise of the traditional family doctor within the next 20 years or so unless effective reforms are put into action immediately.

This is sheer logic: all doctors must specialise even if to humbly become family doctors; family doctors can never expect to earn what their fellow physicians, surgeons and obstetricians/ gynaecologists earn from their speciality! On this basis alone, a neo-graduate would be downright mad to choose family medicine as a speciality!

Furthermore, conditions locally, particularly the status and income of family doctors in Malta, are a far cry from that which our counterparts in most European countries enjoy (in the UK a family doctor in the NHS??ns in excess of e120,000 pa for a five-day week – never working on Saturdays, Sundays, public holidays or nights). Citing what happens abroad is most unfair, hurtful and almost insulting when restricted to certain issues at the exclusion of the wider picture.

Mark Bugeja MD, MMCFD

PEMBROKE