Gozo is facing a terrible catastrophe.  The number of severely disabled people in our sister island has increased exponentially since Labour came to power.  That number didn't just double, or triple, or quadruple.  It increased 40-fold since 2013.

What has Labour done to Gozo? Until the PN was in power there were only 27 persons in Gozo sufficiently disabled to merit a Blue Badge sticker.  By 2024 that number exploded to 1,097.  Roughly one out of every 30 persons now living in Gozo is severely disabled and owns a Blue Badge.  Until 2013 it was just one disabled person for every 1,000 inhabitants.

Such a massive increase in disability in Gozo merits a thorough epidemiological study to identify the root cause.  Surely the Health Ministry should call in its best public health experts to figure out what's going on and take radical urgent steps to rectify the problem.  Any responsible Health Minister would call the WHO for help to determine how to stop the worrying trend. The EU should immediately call a national health emergency for Gozo.

There's only a few things that could cause such a spike.  A 40-fold increase in severely disabled persons in one small area is unprecedented anywhere around the globe and usually signals a serious underlying issue.

Not even amongst the survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima was there such a massive increase in severe disabilities in the decade after those atomic bombs were dropped.  Ukrainians living around Chernobyl only experienced a three-fold rise in serious disease in the decade after the nuclear power station disaster.  The Bhopal tragedy in India came nowhere near inflicting such a massive increase in health problems. 

For the Labour government to ignore such a dramatic deterioration in the health of Gozitans is utterly reckless.  Any responsible government would evacuate the whole island until the cause for the disability epidemic in Gozo is identified and controlled.  What could it be?  Gozo doesn't have any cancer factories that Joseph Muscat spoke about before his ascent to power.  Is there a radiation leak from Gozo's general hospital? Is there some toxic chemical spill into the water?  Could it be all the lead from Gozitan hunters' shootings? Could it be chemicals seeping into the soil from the fireworks let off over Gozitan fields?

Only a virus or bacterium with long-term disabling effects could lead to such a sharp increase in disability.  Have the Gozitan health services looked into this? Could one of the thousands of third country nationals now residing in Gozo have brought in some undetected tropical disease? There's certainly no war or civil unrest in Gozo that would explain the severe disability epidemic. As far as we know Gozo hasn't been hit by any natural disasters. There've been no floods, earthquakes or hurricanes.  Gozo's long dead volcano remains dormant.

The other factors that could contribute to such sudden changes in the population's health include malnutrition and lack of medical care.  Poor prenatal care, lack of vaccinations and malnutrition can lead to birth defects and developmental disabilities.

Could it be that the devastating impact of Labour's catastrophic hospitals concession is only now being felt in that massive rise in Gozitan disability?  Maybe it's the opposite.  Maybe Gozo's health service for disabled persons is so brilliant that all disabled people are moving to Gozo to benefit from the improved care.

Or maybe there's a much simpler explanation.  A slightly deeper analysis of the numbers quickly unravels the mystery of the Gozitan disability epidemic.  The number of disabled persons in Gozo rises dramatically in the year before an election.  Just before the snap election called by Joseph Muscat in 2017 the disabled population in Gozo, as measured by Blue Badge Sticker holders, increased by a staggering 130%.  The number of Gozitan Blue Badge holders rose from just 59 to 136.  That's an increase of 77 disabled persons.

That record was broken in the run up to Robert Abela's first general election as Labour party leader.  In that year the number of disabled persons increased by 137 in just a few months.  Abela's government broke its own record in the run up to the 2024 European parliament elections.  Labour issued a staggering 337 blue badges in Gozo alone - a whopping 44% increase.

The rules for getting a Blue Badge haven't changed.  You still need to be severely and permanently disabled or have temporary mobility impairment to qualify for that precious badge that entitles you to your own private parking bay in front of your house.  You still need to have severe permanent impairment to get that badge which entitles you to park in reserved disability parking bays.

We all know what the truth is.  The number of severely disabled persons in Gozo hasn't increased 40-fold in just10 years. The usually loquacious Julia Farrugia lost her tongue when she was challenged to explain the massive increase in Gozitan blue badges. There is only one explanation - and it's very simple.  It's called abuse.  Only an entirely corrupt system of nepotism could explain those numbers.

The severe disability criminal racket for which former Labour MP Silvio Grixti currently faces prosecution was not a one-off. This is Labour's modus operandi.  This is the highly oiled vote-rigging machine that Robert Abela's Labour has constructed. When his ministers and their "customer care officers" abusively provide their constituents with privileges they're not entitled to, Abela claims they're just doing their job and encourages them to keep doing it.

What Labour's Gozitan Blue Badge racket means is that those who are truly disabled never find a parking spot.  It means that the lives of severely disabled Gozitan residents is rendered impossible as they desperately compete with fully fit individuals for disabled parking bays. But then the truly disabled constitute only a tiny minority.  They're hardly going to swing an election especially since that multitude of undeserved beneficiaries of that priceless Blue Badge knows exactly where its loyalty lies.