The Nationalist Party is proposing setting the stipends for all health care students to be equivalent to that of the minimum wage, while also increasing the stipends for all students by 25%.
The proposals were shared by PN leader Alex Borg during a party event in Mellieha on Wednesday night, together with other proposals centred around the health sector.
The PN already made a number of proposals centred around the health sector, promising among other things that it will build a new hospital in the north of Malta and offer all cancer medicines free of charge.
Borg offered up more details on these proposals: he said that the proposed northern hospital would have 250 beds, that the Gozo General Hospital would have a capacity of 400 beds, and that the Paola Health Hub would be expanded to a capacity of 250 beds as well.
The PN leader on Wednesday night continued to build on these by announcing four more proposals.
The first of these concerned stipends: he said that a PN government would bring the stipend for students studying in the health care sector up to the equivalent of the national minimum wage – which is close to €1,000 per month.
“This will push Maltese and Gozitans to choose to follow health care subjects,” he said.
Notwithstanding that, the party also promised that the stipend for all other students will increase by 25%. The Labour Party earlier in the day also pledged an increase in stipends, but of 15%.
The second proposal, Borg said, is a short-term, temporary measure to address the shortage of health care workers wherein a PN government would eliminate all expenses, such as work permits and visas, related to the engagement of foreign workers in the sector.
“This will guarantee that we can upkeep these ambitious projects that the Nationalist Party has for the health sector,” he said.
Continuing, Borg noted that the last few years has seen Maltese talent, particularly in the health sector, leave the islands.
With this in mind, a PN government would introduce a five-year tax break for health specialists who return to Malta from living and working abroad. These specialists would pay no income tax during their first five years back in the country, Borg said.
“That way, services which today are being given abroad, will start to be given to Maltese and Gozitans in Malta and Gozo,” he said.
He also reiterated his pledge from the previous day: that all cancer medicines will be given for free.
Borg referred to a story run by the Times of Malta, which quoted a letter to the Health Ministry’s permanent secretary from nurses who work in the hospital’s theatre department warning that the surgery recovery area, “which should be sterile, quiet, and highly controlled, has effectively been turned into a congested and disruptive environment".
“Transforming this space into what can only be described as a ‘marketplace’ - with relatives present, children moving around, and continuous unnecessary traffic - is directly jeopardising patient safety,” the health workers reportedly wrote.
Borg said that this was both a shameful and a heartbreaking situation. He also said that the waiting time for operations in hospital is exaggeratedly long.
“Many of these problems are a result of the Labour Party’s politics,” Borg said. He said that despite being in power for 13 years, the Labour government continues to rely on the health investments made by previous Nationalist administrations.
He said that these pledges can only come through if the people vote for the PN on 30 May. “The time has come for the Nationalist Party to give a fresh breath to Malta and Gozo,” he said.