PN MP Claudette Buttigieg has said that some of her colleagues on the other side of Parliament are going through a very difficult time because of the government’s abortion law.
The government last year tabled a Bill in Parliament to introduce a new clause into the criminal code that would allow the termination of pregnancies resulting from a medical intervention aimed at protecting the health of a pregnant woman suffering from a medical complication which may put her life at risk or her health in grave jeopardy. The Bill, which has been the topic of national controversy due to its wording, is currently in the committee stage in Parliament.
Fearne said on 4 January that the government will be making changes to the bill to address two issues which have come across as being “genuine” worries. One of these changes aims to ensure that it is clear that a baby who can be born is born and is allowed to live, he said. Fearne said that the amendment would put beyond any doubt that any viable pregnancy must be seen through, with the baby being born. The second issue raised was that there may be a doctor who abuses from the amendment and allows an abortion to take place when it shouldn’t.
Fearne said that while he has full trust in the country’s doctors and that anybody who does abuse of their position will answer for it, an amendment to the Bill will be made in order to “minimise” the possibility of abuse as much as possible. He did not elaborate exactly what form this amendment would take.
Despite Fearne's announcement, pro-life groups have highlighted that this is not enough and said that this change to the amendment seems to highlight that the government wishes to legalise abortion up to 24 weeks (about 5 and a half months), while only leaving late term abortions illegal. The government has no mandate to legislate for abortion, yet what the government seems to be proposing would allow, for instance, the abortion of a five-month old unborn child for reasons “that could” put the life of the mother “at risk or her health in grave jeopardy," the pro-life groups had said.
In an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, PN MP Claudette Buttigieg was asked whether the amendments to the bill proposed by Fearne would be enough for the PN, which has been opposing the bill, or if more needs to be done for the bill to be acceptable for the party. She said that she will comment only once she has seen the amendments.
"After 10 years in Parliament, seeing laws presented by this government, I would be stupid to comment about a law which the government has made a mess of and the government is promising to change. Anything in the law is a change. The introduction of a comma or the removal of a comma is a change, and it can make a difference in the way a law is interpreted. I definitely will not comment unless I see the amendments,” she said.
To date, she said, "we do not have the amendments in hand, so I will not comment on whether something is adequate or not. Frankly, I do not trust this government at all. So I am not in a position to say yes or no to whatever amendment the government is saying."
"I think Chris Fearne said that to appease people, not in the Nationalist Party, but in the Labour Party. I speak to colleagues on the other side and I can assure you that some of them are going through a very, very difficult time because of this abortion law. I think the comments made by Chris Fearne were merely to appease some people, and to keep people quiet and calm about it, because obviously, after Christmas, people are waiting to see what's going to happen."
The Nationalist Party has drawn a red line over what it believes is completely unacceptable. She was asked if there is any room for movement, or if the issue of the word health in the bill is the main issue on which there is no room for movement
"I come from a party with a statute which is very, very clear, that we are in favour of life from procreation till death, and there's no playing around with words. When you are part of a party where this pro-life message is that strong there are no ifs and buts. We will be in the committee (The Health Committee in Parliament), we're going to see what the government is going to put forward.”
She said that over the past 10 years in opposition, there were many times the government put forward laws the PN disagreed with, “we still made an effort to make them better and that is our responsibility. We're not just an opposition that opposes, we will try to make things better. Obviously, there is a very big but. Here, we're talking about something which for us is cardinal, and we are not going to play about. There are no ifs and buts. I will comment on the details when I see those details.”
“This is how irresponsible Chris Fearne is. He says something about an amendment in a press conference and yet this amendment is not in anyone's hands. So how can you comment about it?"
Out of stock medicines
Buttigieg, who is also the PN’s spokesperson for the fight against diabetes, has been very vocal over the past weeks about out of stock medicines. The situation has locally been blamed on international supply chain issues. She was asked what can be done by the Maltese government to ease the current situation.
"Let me tell you why I've been so vocal about this issue,” she said. “I've been noticing that the supply of insulin was not as regular as it used to be. People know that I am very vocal when it comes to diabetes, and I was receiving a lot of messages from different people (saying) that there is an issue. It's not something which started now," she said.
While speaking with PN MPs Stephen Spiteri and Ian Vassallo, she said, they also noticed that other medicines were out of stock.
"For me, the issue of insulin was the priority, because I know that people with type one diabetes cannot live without insulin. Just the idea that you are not being given the insulin when you go to pick it up from the pharmacy of your choice, or being told 'listen, this week I cannot give you the amount you have on prescription' is very, very worrying. It puts a person with diabetes in a very anxious situation. Why? Because insulin is not a fixed dose (...) If, for instance, a person with diabetes has the flu, or just a cold, the probability is that the sugar level is going to go up, and they would need more insulin."
"Thankfully, our doctors basically always overprescribe, not because they want to waste but because they anticipate that if something like this happens, the patients would need more insulin. But I was getting a lot of phone calls from people panicking."
"It was very clear to me that there was a shortage. I got into it, and then we started opening up and realising there's a serious, serious problem. You mentioned that this issue is international. Of course it is. But the government has an obligation to guarantee a supply, an adequate supply, a continuous supply. The government has a huge responsibility. It is obvious to me that the government needs to constantly be in touch with importers, with the pharmacists, because there are issues which they anticipate as they are constantly meeting patients."
She said that sending the message that everything is under control "is a blatant lie."
Asked, since this seems to be a global supply chain issue, what she would do differently if she was in the government’s position, she mentioned speaking with the suppliers and asking for their help to solve the problem.
As for the government's accepting to meet with the PN to discuss the issue in the Parliamentary Health Committee, she said that the PN will be inviting importers and pharmacists to attend. "We need them on board to solve this problem."
There are issues which the government can do something about, she said, turning to the medicines authority. ”What is happening at the Medicines Authority? There are issues there (…) Something is going on because if the government is trying to buy medicine using Article 20 (of the Medicines Act), as they should be doing at the moment, then it means that they need to go through the Medicines Authority. Why didn't they use Article 20 before, why have they left so much time pass?" Article 20 states that ‘No person shall place a medicinal product on the market in Malta unless he is in possession of a marketing authorisation from the Licensing Authority (the Superintendence of Public Health), in accordance with the provisions of the Act or any regulations or rules made thereunder: Provided that the Licensing Authority may, in exceptional cases, allow the use of a medicinal product without a marketing authorisation subject to such conditions as it may attach to it.”
Another problem, she said, lies with the medicines formulary. “Here we're talking about medicines which the government gives out for free. When was it revisited? Which medicines should we be eliminating from that list in order to add new ones? New ones which may be more costly, but which will avoid patients having to go to hospital on a regular basis, for instance."
Told that the out of stock medicine issue isn't something new, and that it was a problem under the PN government as well, she was asked whether the party should be critcising the government over this issue, given the international supply problems.
Out of stock medicine under Abela's government
"I invite you to visit the Pharmacy of Your Choice out of stock website and go back to when the government would post: 'there is no medicine is out of stock this week'. The last time that such a message was put up was at the end of November 2019. So this tells us, very clearly, that since Roberta Abela became Prime Minister, we've always had medicines out of stock."
"When it comes to your question as to whether we should be criticising the government when we faced similar problems, if that is the case – that one doesn’t criticise because they had similar problems - then we can talk about absolutely nothing. Our role as an opposition is not just to criticise. We didn't just criticise the government about this,” she said, adding that the PN wrote to the government saying they are willing to meet, discuss and to bring stakeholders onboard. “Let's see what the problem is. Let's see how we can help people.”
She said that the PN loves the country and its people too much to remain silent about such situations.
"I will not accept a statement that simply says that everything is under control," she said, in reference to a statement that had been made by the government.
The main concern is that there are too many people who are really anxious and worried that, at the end of the day, they do not have the medicines they need, she said.
Buttigieg had publicly stated that the out of stock medicine situation is going to lead to more patients in the hospital. Asked to identify who is most at risk, she said there is a wide spectrum of people in this situation.
"If patients who have type one diabetes and need insulin are not given insulin, they have to be hospitalised. This is why I am concerned. This is where it started from. But that applies to everything else. If a cancer patient who, for instance, is supposed to be taking medication to help with the breakdown of food in the stomach, is not given that medication, that patient cannot stay at home. That patient will probably have to stay at home for a while drinking food because they cannot break it down, but sooner or later they're going to have to end up on a drip in hospital."
She also highlighted the inferior quality of medicines. "I'm not saying that generic medicines are inferior, far from it. But the formulary still contains medicines which today have been superseded. There are much, much better medicines than what we are giving our patients,” she said, adding that this is the case with a lot of medications.
"From a government where money isn't a problem, I expect much more."
The government, she said, "has a sense of arrogance. They try to ridicule us, they try to say that we don't know what we're talking about... this is their mantra. But people are not stupid. And it's a huge insult to treat people as though they are stupid. People know that when they're going to their POYC pharmacy with their list, they are being told ‘sorry it is not available’. And it's happening regularly. There is an issue and this issue needs to be addressed."
Compensation programme
In a particular press conference, it was said by PN MPs that a compensation programme should be introduced for when patients need to go to the private sector to get, for example, an MRI, as they need to wait too long to get one through the public sector.
Asked if its feasible, she said: "This was even one of our proposals before the general election. Let me tell you what is going on at the moment. When it comes to MRIs, for instance, you have cancer patients, or people who have been possibly diagnosed with cancer who don't know whether they actually have cancer or not, and they have to wait for months to do an MRI. This is not acceptable. When it comes to whether it's feasible, or whether we can afford it, the millions that our government has been pumping into companies like Vitals Global Healthcare. Steward Health Care... what are we getting in return? We don't know, because the contracts have been tippexed and we don't know the details. We don't know what we're supposed to be getting in return. And yet government continues to add more and more and more millions. So the millions are there. Why aren't you giving it to the people? Why are you giving it to the private companies that at the end of the day are definitely not delivering the service this country needs."