Innovation, efficiency and accountability are the three key words that should lead us to upgrade our health sector in which the government does not antagonise but works in partnership with private enterprises, said Azzjoni Nazzjonali leader Josie Muscat yesterday.

Speaking at the party headquarters in Sliema, Dr Muscat said health care was a sector on which he could speak on account of 40 years as general practitioner and 20 as a hospital owner.

Dr Muscat said AN was seeking to reform the system by tackling the sector that held the system in place, who he said were GPs.

He proposed a system in which the government would encourage GPs to team up and set up clinics from where they could provide their service to the public. Patients would through this system be cared for by their GP or by his colleagues on a 24-hour basis. The GPs would also share their patients’ medical history, said Dr Muscat. In turn, GPs would be able to take time off work to relax and also to study abroad, said the party leader.

He insisted that the Maltese system was too skewed in favour of incensing specialists and was not placing enough resources in favour of GPs. He said they would help in the government’s endeavour at cutting waiting lists by providing better care at primary level.

Dr Muscat proposed that all people should be covered by a health insurance policy that would enable people to choose between government or private hospitals. Such policies, he said, would be financed through existing national insurance contributions and VAT proceedings and would also allow well-off people to upgrade their insurance at their own cost.

He said such a system would make the government cost its operations as lack of thereof allowed for inefficiency and abuse.