“Let us keep politics away from Mater Dei,” pleaded Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s at the end of a week marked by a heated exchange between opposition and the government over the new hospital and its migration plans.
The debate heated up after Health shadow minister Michael Farrugia criticised local cardiologist Albert Fenech at the lack of backup facilities during the first angiograms carried out at the new hospital.
The cardiologist hit back hard on TV during a programme attended by himself and Health Minister Louis Deguara. The Labour spokesman failed to attend the programme.
Speaking during a political activity held yesterday in Birkirkara, Dr Gonzi said the Mater Dei Hospital was another step towards keeping Malta among the top countries with the best health care. According to the World Health Organisation, he said, Malta is the fifth best country in the world. Dr Gonzi accused Dr Farrugia of doubting the statistics and said that he was let down by the opposition’s political opportunism.
He said that the Malta Labour Party fomented fear among the Maltese when it spread doubts about the safety of interventions at Mater Dei Hospital. He accused Opposition Leader Alfred Sant of being hypocritical, as he first described the hospital as a state-of-the-art facility and then attacked it and its workers.
Dr Gonzi said next Tuesday will be the third anniversary of a no confidence proposed by the MLP in parliament after the government reached an agreement with building contractors SKANSKA on the handing over of the hospital.
He recalled a statement he read out in parliament where he promised, among others, new working practices and an organised migration. The prime minister said the migration process is well on its way towards completion, with the new ER department up and running and on Tuesday, the hospital will be blessed in the presence of all workers and patients. As regards new working practices, said Dr Gonzi, the government has signed new agreements with all the professionals involved in the running of the hospital. This, he said, will contribute towards axing hospital admissions waiting lists.
The prime minister held that the way forward for the health sector is an improved primary health sector. He said this will be put into practice through technologies, whereby a general practitioner would be granted access to his patients’ records in hospital, thus keeping an updated record.
Health, said Dr Gonzi, was one of the seven pillars of the government’s Vision 2015 that also comprises improvements in the tourism, education and financial sectors. All these, he said, will translate themselves into better workplaces, a higher standard of living and new opportunities that will allow the government to implement several measures such as those announced in the 2008 budget.
He criticised Labour’s budget proposals, four of which he said, would mean a yearly Lm115million deficit. Dr Gonzi said that the MLP only wanted to undo the achievements made by the PN’s prudent budget.
Dr Gonzi said politics is not all about winning elections, but about improving people’s lives. He said the PN has succeeded in this regard and will keep watching over prices in order to curb the expected rise in price of cereals.
The prime minister also stated that the country should forget politics in the upcoming holiday season, as Christmas was a family feast.
Health Minister Louis Deguara said the MLP was totally against the agreement signed between the government and doctors, as Labour-leaning doctors tried convincing doctors not to approve the agreement until the very end. He said the MLP was also totally against Mater Dei Hospital as it saw it as a PN monument.
He criticised the opposition for its scaremongering and said that this time Labour had to face the criticism of its own supporters as well as that of opinion makers and newspapers. Dr Deguara said the party should have apologised to all the Maltese and not treated the incident as a closed case.
He gave a review of the overwhelming response to the Pharmacy of Your Choice Service, which he estimated that 110,000 people would enjoy the service. He said that the service will greatly help the elderly and the more sickly as they would start picking up their free medicines from the pharmacy of their choice rather then from a health centre.
MP Joe Cassar accused the MLP of creating fear among the population, who he said, hold cardiac and respiratory problems as the ones that create more apprehension. He said that medical students learn how to calm down their patients and accused the opposition of doing the opposite.