There is no beating about the bush on this one, or making some wisecrack, or even taking it lightly as if it were just another humdrum topic on the political agenda. Public health is a matter of grave concern, particularly in a place like Malta where we are privileged to have enjoyed, for many decades now, a system of free and efficient services, most of which are the envy of much bigger, richer nations which either could not afford it or were, incredibly, ideologically opposed to it.
Suffice to see what US President Barack Obama had to face simply for seeking to provide free medical services to those who cannot afford the private ones (yeah, they exist in their millions) and which, incidentally, don’t come cheap and are based strictly on the one condition of the patient having an accredited insurance policy. The crass ignorance of the average American citizen when it comes to state assistance in health and education is as amusing to us Europeans as it is stupefying.
Sheer American influence, however, has been seeping into most European political corridors with the result that you get the right-wing elements, particularly those with an Etonian air of superiority such as Britain’s David Cameron, willingly seeking to dismantle the welfare state systems that have benefited Europe and Europeans for so long. We have seen it happening more lately as part of the austerity measures imposed by most Western, centre-right governments that have either lost their energy or do not seem to have any better ideas.
Tampering with the free health service has also been taking place here in Malta. Caught as it is in its own recurring debt and deficit nightmare, the Gonzi government continues to belie its manifold declarations of a commitment to free health services. It has been long in coming, going back to when the Mater Dei Hospital project was still being referred to as the San Raffaele, in line and in synch with the renowned place of the same name in Milan, Italy, which, as we now know only too well, was rife with corruption of the highest level and political deceit.
What still bemuses people about Mater Dei Hospital, for example, is the fact that for all its state-of-the-art amenities, corridors the size of football pitches, and attractive modern design, it has less bed space than St Luke’s, the old general hospital at Guardamangia had. Whoever approved this needs to go to Wied Għammieq cemetery, where people are often seen walking on their knees in holy sacrifice, and do the same thing a thousand times, or at least until the knees crack.
But it is not just the bed shortage crisis that explains why the situation at Mater Dei hints at a possible threat to the free National Health Service. Skanska, the contractor of the new hospital, was paid extra millions by the Gonzi administration to include an oncology clinic, which it never built, and no explanation as to why has ever been given.
While Skanska (for those who enjoy homophonous fun, there is a Maltese word – “skansa” – which refers to someone who has managed to get away with something) have gone to wolf down more millions on some other big project in some other economically colonised country, our government has embarked on its own project of building a cancer hospital adjacent to Mater Dei. Prior to this decision, however, the same Gonzi geniuses had ordered a hugely expensive valuation study of a proposal to use the former Zammit Clapp Hospital in Sliema for this noble purpose.
Of course there is not only a need for a good and modern cancer hospital in Malta to replace the dispiriting ambience of the old Boffa Hospital in Floriana, but also the eager approval of the vast majority of taxpayers who believe that the State should be providing such improvements. Where the horrid Big C is concerned, every expense from public funds is, at least within the European mindset, justified. It is the government’s dithering and complete lack of financial planning that has led to the current crisis.
The whole cancer mess has unfortunately also hit patients in Gozo who, according to recent media reports amid claims made by Prof. Stephen Brincat, died from chemotherapy toxicity because the treatment was carried out without the necessary expertise. Prof. Brincat resigned his post as head of the Oncology Department after his advice on various important issues, including how to introduce chemotherapy in Gozo, was ignored.
Prof. Brincat’s claims of political interference also raise serious concerns on what is happening in the health sector on these islands. If we have come to the situation where a politician, having just arrived in his glittering new Jaguar and sitting in his comfy, refurbished ministry chair, decides who should be treated and who should not, then red lights should be flashing everywhere around us.
It is already insulting enough to have people asking a politician’s help to find jobs, get a government flat, move a loved one into a home or a hospital, and benefit from a personal, eve-of-the-elections tax amnesty. But allowing the politician to decide on the future health of a cancer patient, whatever his or her political inclinations is unacceptable, horrendous and contemptible to say the least.
Added to this state of utter confusion in the health sector, are the drugs and medicine shortages that is forcing people who usually get them free on the national health scheme, to buy them from private sources. Nobody wants to die prematurely, which I guess is right-wing thinking. To add insult to injury, many of these drugs and medicines are sold from private Maltese pharmacies at exorbitant prices, i.e. much higher than the rest of Europe where people’s incomes, paradoxically, are also much higher.
This realistic picture of utter mismanagement of the health service is part of a larger, discomforting jigsaw that has seen the Gonzi government spending its multi-millions of more borrowed money on superfluous grandiose projects such as the new parliament building and the breakwater bridge to nowhere while the everyday health service in the villages and towns of Malta and Gozo has been left to deteriorate to a disquieting degree. What once were properly-staffed, properly-maintained and properly-equipped health centres that relieved the strain on the general hospital, have been reduced to shambles where people queue for hours only to find that either the doctor is not in, or the pills that he or she needs are out of stock.
Leader of the Opposition Joseph Muscat has rightly called for the politicians concerned to shoulder responsibility for this unholy mess. It is, sadly, yet another appeal that will go unheeded by a government that is more interested in preserving its long-expired stay in power than to make sure that the social treasure that we have enjoyed for so many years, the national health service introduced by a Labour government and enhanced by successive Maltese governments, is not lost to the greedy class.
If Gonzi’s only retort to this highly worrying state of affairs is all about “sustainability”, then his sad and tired government has already given up on yet another important matter of grave national concern.