Former health minister Joe Cassar insisted that the media was being more forgiving of the new government's actions than it would have been of the government he formed part, in what proved to be an impassioned adjournment speech.

The speech started tamely enough, with Dr Cassar pointing out that today was World Asthma Day.

But after noting that it was now up to the new government to build on past achievements in the field, and stressing that the opposition had the right to scrutinise it, the tone soon changed.

He questioned the “truly independent” newspapers' role in scrutinising the new government, insisting that the previous government would not have gotten away with the same actions.

As an example, he referred to the ministerial code of ethics waiver allowing ministers and parliamentary secretaries to continue seeing patients: the former minister insisted that he would have been pilloried by the press and by the public if he had done the same.

He said that the Labour Party conveniently chose not to discuss the matter when it was in opposition, and recounted that it was personally very difficult for him to stop seeing patients when he was appointed to cabinet in 2008.

“Do you think that I did not feel for my patients... did not cry when former patients suffering from depression called? Think I did not suffer when I started private practice again, when patients questioned why I had abandoned them,” Dr Cassar remarked, adding that psychiatric patients deserved no less than eye patients did.

Dr Cassar also pointed out that many ministry secretariats included a substantial proportion of people from outside the public service, in spite of guidelines recommending that civil servants should be taken on board as much as possible.

He noted that this added to costs, since an additional salary would have to be paid.

In the meantime, the former minister said, the government was cost-cutting in two areas it had sworn to leave untouched – education and healthcare.

As an example, he noted that the free emergency service provided to the public during weekends at St James Hospital's Sliema and Zabbar hospitals had been discontinued.

He questioned whether the government was aware of what the situation at the emergency department at Mater Dei was in the small hours of Saturday night, pointing out that healthcare professionals were not allowed to restrain any patients, regardless of how aggressive they became.

As he concluded, Dr Cassar insisted that he had never witnessed such a “honeymoon period,” in which the government was free to act as it desired.

But he warned: “when the honeymoon ends, these things will come back to haunt you.”