The Medical Association of Malta (MAM) said yesterday that the recently published Eurohealth Report confirmed the gradual deterioration of Malta’s health service resulting from the country’s inability to recruit and retain doctors.

MAM president Stephen Fava maintained that the overall score of the country’s health services was pushed down by the excessively long waiting times for many medical interventions such as hip replacement, cataract surgery and coronary angiography.

“This is a direct consequence of the lack of medical manpower. The country also fared badly with regard to the speed of deployment of novel anti-cancer drugs, access to new drugs and MRSA (superbug) infection rate,” he said.

The MRSA infection rate is a result of the chronic overcrowding at St Luke’s Hospital, which the authorities have failed to tackle in spite of repeated calls by the MAM, he added.

In spite of all these shortcomings, Malta’s health services still perform very well with regard to the outcome of medical care, which was not adequately or scientifically measured in the report, Dr Fava said.

“Malta’s maternal and infant mortality, complication rate in diabetic patients, mortality after heart attacks and outcome of surgical interventions and cancer treatments are all excellent.

“The World Health Organisation has also repeatedly ranked Malta’s standard of health care as second in the world for the amount of money spent.”

Dr Fava said the report underlined what MAM has been saying for a long time, namely that in spite of the excellent care given by doctors to individual patients, the standard of our health services is steadily declining as a result of the medical brain drain.

“This is, in turn, a result of the appalling conditions of work. MAM once again calls on the government to rectify the situation without further delay. With waiting times in some instances exceeding one year, our public health system is close to total collapse,” he said.

Dr Fava added that it was about time that the government got its priorities right in the best interest of patient safety.