May I correct the impression given by Bernardino Regazzoni, the Swiss Ambassador for Malta who is reported to have stated that with the agreement to buy a new PET scanner, Mater Dei Hospital will be able to perform “2,000 CT coronary angiography studies annually. In the past, patients had to travel abroad for diagnoses.” (TMI 12 June 2010)

At Saint James Hospital, we have been conducting such coronary CT angiographies since 2008. The PET scanner first installed at St James Hospital was developed in collaboration with the well-known San Raffaele Hospital of Milan, Italy which also trained our operators and monitors our operation.

Cancer patients only need to travel abroad when they need treatment by machines which are still not available on the island. Likewise, whether they are diagnosed privately or at the expense of the State, they still need to buy the many expensive drugs for the treatment of cancer which are also not available on the island.

One cannot but commend Switzerland for helping to reduce economic and social disparities in the enlarged EU. Considering the cost of buying, operating and maintaining these machines, and the fact that the island already possesses a PET scanner, the Health Department might have been better advised to ask Switzerland to help Malta obtain both the drugs needed to combat cancer together with those machines now available in its treatment elsewhere.

Dr Josie Muscat MD ARDMS

Chairman

Saint James Hospital Group