One of the great songs from the rock opera, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, is called “Joseph Megamix”. Listening to the lyrics can take you on a nostalgia trip to the 2013 general election campaign:

Go, go, Joseph …  Go, go, go, Joseph…

Joseph the things you stood for … Like truth and light never die…

Now wake up and return to Joseph Muscat’s Malta, two years down the road for which he had a famous map to excellence, not least in health care. Where has it led us so far?

If you’re in Mater Dei Hospital, it might lead you to the corridors of one particular section (level -1, if you really want to know), which are packed with patients and oxygen cylinders. There are no adequate toilet facilities. Patients – possibly your ageing father, mother or favourite aunt – have to wear nappies. There is no privacy, so patients cannot be washed with dignity. They have to be cleaned with wipes.

If anybody complains, they are told, “You are lucky to have a bed.”

This is the standard of health care under Muscat. This is his package deal. He strips you of your dignity and gives you a bed in a corridor. You have no right to complain. You’re told to be thankful.

But maybe that’s Mater Dei Hospital. What about Gozo, soon to be showered with investment in the health sector?

Funny you should ask that. Word has it that a private management team will soon be moving in. Subtle (and not so subtle) messages have been circulating with the Gozo hospital employees. Once the €200 million investment in health takes place, the bed capacity in Gozo is going to increase by – wait for it – a mere 10 beds (yes, you got that right the first time: ten).

That’s not the end of the good news. Many Gozitans who work in the health system, are either going to lose their job or else find themselves deployed to Malta. So much for Muscat’s other promise of work in Gozo for the Gozitans.

Some of you, trying to be fair, might ask whether these are all symptoms of inherited problems. After all, we have a health minister brimming with management-speak. Aren't the right decisions being taken now, with the great effects soon to be felt?

Think again. The events revealed by this newspaper, this week alone, have highlighted the shocking level of decision-making in the health sector. More and more people are realising this.

When The Malta Independent revealed that the post of CEO of a new nursing school was going to be given to a person who does not have the academic qualifications to run such an institution, I was flooded with messages, calls and emails.

For the many who have struggled hard to study and better themselves, this was nothing short of an insult.

How could anybody decide to shred all the dignity and respect associated with the most qualified and competent health professionals?

How could such a post be unadvertised and instead hidden from public knowledge?

Why was this post not advertised on a competitive basis, with the eventual choice governed by meritocracy?

If we didn’t know why, the unfolding of the story made the answers to those questions clear. As public hostility to the upcoming appointment became evident, somebody in government had the bright idea of changing the post from CEO to… Advisor.

Let’s face it, what’s in a name? Seriously, what's in a name if your appointment wasn’t going to be made on what you were expected to deliver? The really important thing is that backroom deals, and the price tag that comes with them, are honoured.

Just in case I’m accused of being negative, let me say something positive. The health ministry is a great place to be in… if you’re Konrad Mizzi. If you’re his elusive wife, then you have it even better (much better) than the Chinese prime minister, bedsheets and all.

Is Joseph Muscat’s real package deal the one so many thousands voted for? Was he a bargain or was he a scam? I guess it depends where you’re looking at this from: somewhere in the real world of patient care, or somewhere down the rabbit hole.