MAM fears lowering of standard of health training

The Medical Association of Malta (MAM) is opposing a proposed amendment to the Health Care Professions Act as it fears this could be detrimental to the control of the standard of health training which doctors are given.

MAM general secretary Martin Balzan said the existing European Union directive only obliged Malta to recognise degrees attained in EU member states. Malta, he said, was not required to give automatic recognition for degrees obtained from non-EU countries.

However, he added, the amendments which were presently being discussed in parliament would oblige Malta to do so, which was something no other EU country had accepted.

MAM has raised the matter with the government and is expecting an answer to its representations.

Dr Balzan said the amendment required Malta to "recognise" individuals with qualifications from outside the EU, once they had been recognised in an EU country - while the EU directive only required Malta to "examine" such a recognition. He explained to The Times that the amendment would mean that if a Latvian person obtained a degree or did his training in a non-EU state, and the Latvian authorities decided to recognise his training, Malta would also have to recognise it.

The MAM general secretary said the EU directive stated that in such a case, the training or degree should be "examined", but a country would not be bound to recognise it. He said the amendment to the Health Care Professions Act should simply reflect what the EU directive stated, using the word "examined".

Dr Balzan said that if the proposed amendment were accepted, this would mean that Malta would be opening its doors to doctors from all over the world.

Apart from presenting a threat to doctors in Malta, Dr Balzan stressed that this would also mean they would not be able to control the standard of training.

He said the automatic recognition of all degrees had to fulfil certain minimum criteria and there was no such guarantee for degrees obtained from non-EU countries and therefore automatic recognition was not in the patient's best interest.

Such degrees, he said, should continue to be vetted by the appropriate local regulatory bodies.

In a statement, he said the proposed amendment was unacceptable to the medical profession as there was no reciprocity in such recognition since only Malta was going to implement it.

The association was calling upon the government to rectify the situation by accurately transposing the relevant part of the EU directive into Maltese law without any "unwarranted alterations".