On Wednesday 25 July, Marie Louise Coleiro-Preca and Silvio Parnis, MLP spokespersons for the elderly held a press conference outside St Vincent de Paule Hospital to highlight the plight of a number of elderly people who during the recent heat wave have been suffering terribly. These elderly people were in wards which have no air-conditioning and which have been experiencing difficulties from lack of staff and industrial action.

The plight of these elderly has to be seen to be believed. In a late effort to remedy the situation, the authorities embarked on a serious of works that aggravated rather than helped their plight. Yet PBS, otherwise known as the Public Broadcasting Services (my emphasis), chose to hide this situation by failing to report the press conference in its news bulletins.

It thought it more important to report about Harry Potter, a fictitious character, and whether he will be killed off or not, than on a bunch of defenceless old people suffering from the effects of the heat. PBS preferred fiction to real humans.

To add insult to injury, it thought it also more important to tell us about the launch of the Simpsons movie – cartoon characters – than about a group of vulnerable people whose plight needed publicity. They felt that the MLP news conference was not newsworthy on the same level as that of Harry Potter and the Simpsons. Shame on you PBS and the values which guide your actions.

This was not the only MLP press release on the subject ignored by PBS and the rest of the media. It is not a story which, it seems, attracts readers, and hence adverts. Certainly not in the same league as large pictures of girls in bikinis strutting the catwalk. And apparently as it was the MLP that was raising the issue, it was the more important to ignore, as if the suffering of elderly people was restricted to MLP sympathisers only.

Let me assure your readers that the issues raised by the MLP spokespersons were real issues and are as real now as I write this letter. And also let me assure your readers that despite the denials that some elderly residents of St Vincent de Paule died during the heat wave as a consequence of lack of proper facilities, the relatives of these people believe otherwise. Official denials will never change that. Shame on you all.

Prof. Godfrey A. Pirotta

Gwardamangia