The director of the Health Promotion Department, Mario Spiteri, will not be reappointed to his post, possibly because he refused to include the abstinence-only model in the department’s sexual health campaign, The Malta Independent on Sunday has learnt.

The term of office for director of the Health Promotion Department is five years and once these were up, Dr Spiteri reapplied after there was a call for applications in a circular dated 16 March issued by the Office of the Prime Minister.

Dr Spiteri received a reply in an e-mail dated 20 September from the Office of the Prime Minister.

In a terse, two-line reply, he was informed that, following his application for the position of Director in the Health Promotion Department, “this position has now been filled”.

Dr Spiteri told this newspaper he had suspicions that his position would not be renewed but confirmed his doubts on Thursday.

He also suspects that his efforts to promote sexual health were a possible reason why his tenure as director was not renewed.

Dr Spiteri pointed out that a columnist of a Sunday newspaper had once dared the Health Minister to remove him from his position as director for not having promoted the abstinence-only model for young people who are sexually active.

“However, one of the pillars of adolescent health promotion is a sound and realistic sexual health policy unfettered by dogma and taboos,” he said.

The slogan chosen by the Health Promotion Department for 2006 campaign gave a holistic approach to sexual health – “Protect yourself against HIV/AIDS, it’s as easy as A,B,C,D” referred to abstinence, being faithful, using condoms and not doing drugs, and is in line with the motto of the worldwide campaign Stop AIDS.

Furthermore, a sexual health policy was drafted in 2002 by the Health Promotion Department and handed to the authorities soon after, but it was never launched or implemented.

The policy was aware of new challenges including “the fact that sexual activity starts at a younger age and continues later on in life, increased likelihood that individuals will have more than one partner in their lifetime, increase in teenage pregnancies and STDs and more willingness to experiment”.

The document stated that it had a twofold aim: to improve the sexual health of the population and to narrow inequalities in sexual health.

He explained that, as part of a major re-structuring exercise within the Health Division, the Health Promotion Department now also includes Disease Prevention.

There are now three positions of Director General that have been established for three separate divisions – each of which have their own directorates.

The Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Department now forms part of the Public Health Regulation Division. The Disease Surveillance Unit originally formed part of the Public Health Department – which has been abolished – and now there is the Environmental Health Department (previously the Health Inspectorate).

He explained that health promotion is all about raising public awareness for the adoption of a healthy lifestyle.

However, added Dr Spiteri, healthy lifestyles only pay back in the long term and only after an extensive marketing campaign.

“What is spent on health promotion in Malta is nothing compared to the millions spent on health care,” he said.

However, said Dr Spiteri, whoever included health promotion under public health regulation proves that he has no idea of what health promotion is all about.

“Lumping infectious diseases together with non-communicable diseases is going back to the past when the Health Education Unit was first established in the early 1980s,” he said.

“Maybe the new radical model of promoting health as supported by the World Health Organisation and practised in most European countries was perceived as a threat to the conventional medical gate keepers,” added Dr Spiteri.