The market price of medicines continues to serve as a well-worn political football, with both the government and the opposition producing their own contrasting and diametrically opposed lists of price fluctuations to lend credence to their own arguments, while attempting to dispel those presented by the other side of Malta’s political sphere.
Once again the government and the opposition are taking the people for fools that swallow – hook, line and sinker - anything they are told by their respective parties, while completely ignoring what the other side has to say.
As such, a sort of balance is created but, on the whole, the way in which the parties are treating an issue as important as the cost of medicines is demonstrative of the sorry state of affairs we are living with.
On the one hand, the government last week published a list of medicines that are cheaper today than they were before it started taking the metaphorical bull by the horns by clamping down on pharmaceutical importers whose prices were found to be unjustified.
What was humorous, however, was that the official press statement issued through the Department of Information referred to increases in the prices of 38 medicines – an error corrected the following day to the effect that the 38 medicines have actually decreased in price.
A few days earlier, the acting leader of the Malta Labour Party Charles Mangion, produced – at a party gathering – a list of 39 products that have increased between one and 84 per cent in price, over a three-month period ending in December. This newspaper obtained a copy of the list of the medicinal products in question and it was published last Thursday.
Dr Mangion said such increases were unjustified in the light of price freeze agreements reached as part of the euro changeover process, while the government insists its price monitoring mechanisms are producing results.
What is annoying for the average citizen is that neither side makes reference to price fluctuations that run contrary to their arguments. The government has not produced a list of prices that have increased, and the opposition has not mentioned the products that, today, are less expensive. How very convenient.
What is even more frustrating is that they then attack each other for not showing the whole picture, when they are failing to do so themselves. Would it really be so difficult to say that while some prices have increased, others have decreased, or vice versa?
Looking at the big picture, some medicinal prices have increased while others have decreased. Very few arguments are either black or white – or red or blue for that matter – and as regards the mixed and confusing messages the people are being given on the prices of medicines, there are many shades of grey in between.
But, as usual, Malta’s two main political parties are ignoring the grey for their own political agenda. They are only interested in portraying the facts that suit them most, without acknowledging the simple fact that the people are intelligent enough to know there are two sides to every coin.
The government wants the people to see only one side of the state of affairs, while the opposition wants the people to see only the other. How pathetic! And then both the government and the opposition talk about credibility.
In view of all this, one could argue the time is ripe for an independent investigation into the actual state of play in the sensitive market, which also depends heavily on the prices Malta’s importers are charged by their foreign suppliers.
Such an investigation would, hopefully, bring to an end such petty and misleading bickering, which puts both the government and the opposition in bad light for simply refusing to accept reality.
If things do not change, the people will continue to be fed half the information from one side of the political sphere and half the information from the other. Those who only watch ONE TV will believe all prices of medicinal products are rising unabated, while those who watch only NET TV will think all prices have gone down.
Sad, so sad.