TMID Editorial: Fixing healthcare

The Government has a lot to answer for when it comes to the healthcare infrastructure issues in the country.

It was the Labour Government, after all, that lost millions and millions of euros and years of time through a deal which brought no benefit for the country, and which was annulled by the courts in judgements that first mentioned fraud, then collusion.

€400 million, the Opposition says, is what was "stolen".

Just imagine what could have been done with that amount of money had the deal been avoided. Perhaps St Luke's Hospital would currently be operating as a secondary hospital? Perhaps the Gozo Hospital would have been significantly upgraded by now. Time and money lost.

Let's not forget, the first company that signed the deal, Vitals Global Healthcare, had no experience in running hospitals. Yet the Government at the time saw fit to sign an agreement handing over three hospitals to it to run.

The Government is also taking its time in trying to retrieve what it says are the funds for which nothing was given in return, going through an arbitration process. One does wonder how much the Government is trying to actually retrieve, and why a court case wasn't opened instead.

But the issues regarding the healthcare service continue to emerge. Just this week, a response to a Parliamentary Question revealed that a total of 2,612 patients have been waiting to have a general surgical operation longer than the time stipulated in the Patient Charter. Health Minister, Jo Etienne Abela, said that this was for "various reasons", and assured that any urgent operations are carried out as soon as possible. Abela also reiterated that the Government has allocated €14 million to address the waiting list issue through an outsourcing programme to ensure that patients are attended to as quickly as possible.

Could this situation have been avoided had there been better investment of the public funds in healthcare, probably. But now that we are in such a situation, the Government must pull its socks up and solve the issues that are present.

The outsourcing solution should probably just be a temporary one, until more facilities are opened up and such operations can again be brought back into public healthcare completely.

To do that, aside from infrastructural investments, an increase in medical staff will also be needed. That is not something that can be solved overnight. It would require enticing more people to go into the medical field, enticing them to remain in Malta, and also in this sector, it would mean attracting medical staff from outside of Malta.

It must be pointed out that the staff in the health sector have been, for the most part, fantastic in their work, and have made great sacrifices for this country, as was seen during the Covid pandemic.

A good move is the increased focus on health hubs, such as that in Paola, which should help ease pressure on Mater Dei Hospital. It was disappointing to read, however, that Health Minister, Jo Etienne Abela, had dismissed the creation of a northern health hub as "mathematically impossible" due to staff shortages, as was reported by Newsbook. This just highlights how important it is to continue working to solve the staffing issues in the healthcare sector.

As for infrastructural works, Minister Jo Etienne Abela announced the initiation of the first phase of the development and regeneration project of the Gozo General Hospital. This is good news, but again, it must be pointed out that this is something that should have been done years ago. There are also plans to further ease the strain on Mater Dei. The healthcare sector is of the utmost importance, and the Government must work hard to improve it.