Historic is an adjective that has been used twice over the past few days.

It was the term used by the government to describe the agreements that were reached in the health sector.

On 25 October, the government signed a memorandum of understanding with the Union Haddiema Maghqudin and an agreement with the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses that will improve the working conditions, salaries and job status of various health professionals employed in the public sector.

On 1 November, the government and the Medical Association of Malta signed an agreement that will bring a marked improvement to the working conditions of doctors employed in the public service. This includes sharp pay rises as well as incentives for specialists and consultants to leave their private practices and to work solely for the government health service.

On both occasions, the government described the agreements as being historic, and as paving the way for improved health services, right on the eve of another historic moment – the transfer of health services from the “old” St Luke’s Hospital to the “state of the art” Mater Dei Hospital.

It has taken longer than originally planned, but the migration process has now picked up momentum and only yesterday we had the first surgical operations taking place at Tal-Qroqq.

All the agreements are important to ensure that the services given in the health sector are upgraded. But, of course, the accord with the doctors carried more weight as it has a wider significance.

For one thing, as MAM general secretary Martin Balzan told this newspaper, hours after the majority of doctors had approved the agreement during an extraordinary general meeting, that the improvement in the conditions of work will help to curb, possibly stop, the brain drain from the medical sector.

This was a huge headache for the government. Doctors were leaving public employment in search of greener pastures, so the government risked having a new hospital but with fewer doctors to run its services. Of course, there is no guarantee that all doctors will, in the end, agree to stay on with the government service and work more hours in state hospitals. But the doubling of the salaries that doctors will be receiving for their services to the government is a big incentive. Doctors who choose to retain their private practice will get a substantial pay-rise too.

The greater availability of specialists and consultants will also mean that the long waiting lists that are often at the centre of political controversy will be slashed. Political parties in opposition often accuse the party in government of playing with people’s health, and that waiting lists for surgical operations grow endlessly. With the agreement in place, this problem will be curbed too.

As Health Minister Louis Deguara explained, it is the patients that will benefit the most from the investment that the government has made to build the new hospital and through the agreements intended to improve the services given.

But there is another side to the coin, one that the government will have to look into in the near future.

Now that the future of the health sector has been secured, and doctors have been given overwhelmingly superior conditions of work, what will the other professionals in government employment say?

Will the architects, lawyers, university professors and other professional people in government employment be demanding the same conditions as the doctors have obtained? Will there be suggestions that other professionals in the government service have been discriminated against?

And how will the government react? The agreement with the doctors will cost the government (the country) an extra Lm1.8 million. Is the government in a position to offer similar conditions to the other professionals in its employment?