The wellbeing of a society is mostly judged by its status in terms of access to health care. For decades, successive administrations in Malta have made the health service a key battleground for political gain in electoral campaigns and a key deliverable in terms of implementation of their political platforms. For this reason, it is fair to say that our health service has gone from strength to strength in our collective commitment to a social market economy. In almost every election that I can remember, the issue of the cost of healthcare has been a political football dribbled for party advantage. In the end, the universality of healthcare has been the supreme winner to the benefit of our patients and citizens. So what is next for us in terms of healthcare?
As a surgeon, I can see the value added of the investments we have made in terms of medical equipment and practice for the benefit of patients. Yet waiting times for operations remain far too long, medical screening too limited and access to our Mater Dei via outpatients too unmanaged. In an ageing society, these issues of accessibility assume more importance as the quality of life of patients depends on access to timely care. These are areas where under a government led by our Forza Nazzjonali we can and will do more.
A second pillar we must focus on to ensure universality and sustainability is to invest more to achieve a healthy society. This means moving beyond a society reliant solely on a strong healthcare sector to a more holistic and integrated approach. In practice, this translates into a stronger investment in prevention. We have become acutely more aware of the need to engage in living healthy lifestyles. On a personal level, we eat more healthily and the growing trend of regular exercise is witnessed by the number of people who do regular sports. However, we must also look at the factors that continue to keep pollution levels up. The creation of a lower carbon economy primarily through a sustainable transport and energy system will be one of the key drivers. A commitment to roll out better infrastructure to guard against avoidable injury is critical to protect our citizens from harm. These are areas Forza Nazzjonali has committed to take on and deliver.
A crucial part of the plan to build a healthy society rests with better-integrated health care. We must focus more strongly on boosting the role and capacity of our primary health sector. This is a challenge that, if properly managed, can deliver great benefits and ensure both a high quality of life for the patient but also for the sustainability of the health system as a whole. Having the primary health sector as the gatekeeper for our patients can lead to better pathways for prevention and cure while ensuring that the more specialised care remains at the top most level of investment and output. The patient must have quick and seamless access to health care with the best levels of care at each stage. But we also have to invest more in guiding and assisting our patients to navigate between the primary and specialized sectors of care.
To do this we need tools and innovation. When we speak of referral pathways or patient records, when we speak of better accessibility to our healthcare system, we speak of building the right framework to guarantee that this can happen in practice. We have to move away from always looking at our health system only as a cost and see instead the innovation potential that it holds. Investing in areas such as e-health can offer great opportunities for our innovative sectors. It can make our lives as citizens and patients easier and more straightforward and ensure that the pathways for access to healthcare and the outcomes are clearer and better understood.
The health sector can be a powerful driver for economic growth whether in terms of development of tools and innovative solutions or whether in terms of developing medical tourism to offer the best that we can to patients from beyond our shores. To ensure that we benefit from the potential that the health sector offers to the maximum, it is important to ensure that it remains an integral part of our governance. It should not be hived off as though the potential for its management is beyond our capabilities. We can and should be proud of what we have already achieved in the health sector. We can and must look forward to meeting the new challenges and creating new opportunities that this sector can offer. I, for one, am intensely keen on forming an integral part of a new team that ensures that these changes are put in place for the benefit of all Maltese and Gozitans.
Mr Zammit is a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and PN candidate on the 10th and 13th districts