What will it take, I wonder, to make this government get its head out of the sand and really see what’s going on?

Every day we read in the papers that urgent restoration work is needed to stop precious buildings or monuments from crumbling, or extremely old books from turning into dust, but how about medicines that give people like me the semblance of a “normal” life?

I, and many others like me, suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, which is a very painful, degenerative and debilitating disease of the joints. For 11 whole years, no matter what medicine I was given, nothing helped and apart from the excruciating pain, I was totally dependent on others for the most basic of needs.

In 2002 I was prescribed Enbrel injections – twice weekly – and it was as if I had been re-born. Yes, there are still days when I’m in a great deal of pain but for most of the time I can function like a normal human being and am

independent.

However, for the last five months these

injections have been permanently “out of stock”, or so we are told, and when we do get them we just get two for that particular week and never know whether we are going to have any the

following week or not. From one week to the next we have to live in the hope that we will have our weekly supply in order to function.

I have tried to find out exactly where the problem lies – whether it is with the Government Pharmacy Stores, who do not supply the Out-Patients Pharmacy with enough stock, or whether the order for supplies is late or whether it’s a direct order from the Ministry or whatever, but wherever I turn I come up against a blank wall. No one is responsible and no one will say who is.

I have also spoken to Minister Dr Cassar on a radio programme and even sent him two emails explaining what the problem is. I must admit that for one short month I was given a four-week supply as used to happen before January, but then we went back to square one and every week we have to go up to hospital, hoping and hoping that we will be given our weekly injections.

I have now been given a three-week supply, six injections, but I do not know what is going to happen when I go for my next supply.

We honestly cannot continue with such uncertainty, hanging on from week to week or month to month in the hope that we will be given the injections we need.

If the problem is a lack of money, I just wonder how Dr. Gonzi can sleep at night, knowing that he is about to squander €80 million on a useless building that no one wants and which the 69 Parliamentarians we have certainly do NOT deserve, when he can do so much with that money. Oh, and by the way, I have not heard one single squeak from Dr Joseph Muscat against the building of this white elephant, or seen him or any of his MPs take to the streets to protest. I guess that they are all just waiting for this new and luxurious building to be built for them, while letting the government take the flack for it.

So, dear Dr Gonzi, can you please stop and think about what you are about to do before it is too late. Only you can stop this madness. Please pull your head out of the sand and take a really good look all around you.

At this moment in time you are reminding me – and many thousands of other Maltese people – of a sulky schoolboy who is throwing a tantrum, stamping his feet and saying “I want it”, “I want it” and that’s it, no matter what.

You are still in time to use that money for many other things that we really need. I am just hoping and praying that good sense will prevail before it is much too late.

Margaret Camilleri-Pace

SLIEMA