Why is it that every time a young person is taken to casualty at St Luke's Hospital it is assumed that drugs are the cause?. Obviously, I am not talking about broken limbs.
A young Norwegian girl was taken to hospital after collapsing on July 29. According to official police sources the police are always called by the hospital if there is a danger that a patient's life is in danger. But somebody jumped the gun on the cause of the girl's illness in this case. Was it the police or the doctors?
If the police were giving out unofficial information they could only have got the information from the doctors; maybe the latter were not expecting the police to talk to the press, but somebody did.
Are we so obsessed with the idea that all youngsters who collapse must be on drugs that our judgment is impaired? This case also raises the question: what if a patient, a known drug abuser, is admitted to hospital after collapsing, yet the reason for his collapse would be totally unconnected with drug-taking?
According to The Malta Independent the police told their reporters that the Norwegian girl was suffering from a suspected overdose. Further, according to the newspaper, a police inspector confirmed to a Norwegian newspaper that the girl was definitely suffering from an overdose. Dagbladet published a front-page story quoting a Maltese police inspector confirming an Ecstasy overdose.
We are not told the name of this inspector or whether his name appeared in the Norwegian paper. However, that same afternoon (Wednesday) the police told The Malta Independent that the girl was "definitely not suffering from an overdose".
The CMRU, the information arm of the police, told me yesterday that no official statement was released by the police until the girl died, and that statement ruled out drug abuse. But someone within the police force was talking to The Malta Independent and the overseas press.
An autopsy on August 3 revealed a fractured skull and the cause of death as intracranial haemorrhage. The girl apparently was conscious when admitted and complained of abdominal pain and the health authorities have since said she was admitted with gastro-enteritis.
The magisterial inquest is still under way. The results will show whether the medical care given to the girl was at fault. However, in the meantime we have been daubed internationally as a haven for drug users all because of this obsession that some within the police force harbour with drugs and the young.
I am under no illusion that there is not an amount of drug-taking by the young on the island. As everywhere else, the young have always experimented with drugs, but thankfully, only a minority become drug addicts.
Of course police officers should ensure that drug trafficking and abuse is curbed but they should not let their judgment be dominated by the idea that all young people who collapse are on drugs.
That is a dangerous course to follow as has been proved by this case.
Damning statement
The Chief Justice's resignation was not unexpected. I am assuming he got an okay from the courts to break his bail conditions to submit his resignation to the President.
Anybody who knows the man will tell you that he was not going to stew until the MPs get back from their hols and the Commission for the Administration of Justice deliberated at their usual pace. Being the vice- chairman of the Commission he has first-hand experience of how things can trail on and on.
He was wise to do so, it would have been wiser had he acted sooner. While apologising to the public, former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo expressed regret that he had been "pre-judged" and said that his position had been prejudiced and would affect his rights to a fair and impartial hearing.
He maintains that the public declaration of the police findings before he was interrogated acted as a pre-judgment. The damning statement "It resulted that money was paid to the two judges", made by the Prime Minister at a press conference on August 1, left little doubt in the public's mind that the two judges were guilty.
And as I wrote last week, the media were bound to swoop on such a story.
When the Attorney-General was asked whether he felt the PM's remarks had prejudiced the case, he first said the question should be directed to the prime minister, then elaborated that "it was incumbent on the government to explain to the public that any investigation being carried out with regard to any judge is not vexatious or otherwise badly motivated".
Which begs the question - would it have sufficed for the PM just to say that he was convinced that the police investigations were neither vexatious or badly motivated?
If that had occurred, the charges would have been made known to the media the following Sunday, and we would have had wild speculation in the media after the judges were seen at the depot.
Undisciplined lot
Everybody knows that Maltese drivers are an undisciplined lot. They never use their indicators; use both sides of the road and the middle according to their convenience; ignore stop signs and swan out of side streets; stop for conversations in the middle of the road; park on corners; overtake in tunnels and jump lanes in bumping-car fashion.
I know that hapless drivers of small cars get booked for parking on corners, but the law does not seem to apply to huge delivery lorries. The latter park on corners, blocking parts of the adjoining streets completely and present a much more serious hazard, yet they get away with it.
I can understand why many people get upset at being booked for minor traffic offences, or sometimes because a warden is unable to use common sense. It is pretty galling to see more serious offenders get away with it and some of the enforcers breaking all the rules, and what's more, they do not even know they are doing it, or else it seems like it.
Yesterday morning, as I was driving in the fast lane, the outside lane (that's a joke in itself, because the inside lane still remains the fast lane most of the time here), a police car in front of me on the inside lane almost cut me up, bumping-car fashion.
The police officer driving the car did not use his indicator and obviously did not look out for oncoming traffic. Had I not blown my horn the car would have swanned out in front of me, if I was lucky just missing me.
As it was the driver pulled back into his lane. There was no gesture of apology from the officer, on the contrary he gave me a look as if to say "what are you making a fuss about, lady".
If the drivers of police vehicles do not even use their indicators; drive slowly in the fast lane and overtake dangerously, how are we to expect any discipline on our roads.
Show me the way to go home
Undisciplined drivers are not the only problem on our roads. An article in Friday's L-Orizzont covered the chaos caused by cranes blocking the road in my neck of the woods: Rudolph Street, Manwel Dimech et al.
The story told of drivers running around in circles and having to resort to driving up one-way streets to get out of the maze. The article laid the blame on the local council who apparently are now responsible for giving out licences to cranes and other cumbersome vehicles which require a road to be inaccessible.
I am sure things could be better organised but the problem of finding blocked roads with no indication of an alternative route is nothing new and certainly occurred even when the police were responsible.
The problem is not so much having cranes blocking a road. Sometimes it is inevitable, but the concept of providing alternative routes for drivers when access is blocked is non-existent in this country.
You are never warned well in advance that a road ahead is blocked. You find out when you get to the point of no return. Or else it never occurs to whoever is organising the traffic that vehicles turning off before the blockage can get through, so even though one can easily have access before getting to the impasse, the whole road is sealed off, forcing you to go round and round the merry-go-round.