Health authorities accused of discrimination

The Medical Association of Malta (MAM) yesterday accused the health authorities of flouting the law by discriminating between doctors.

The association expressed surprise at comments made in Parliament by Heath Minister Louis Deguara who said that two consultants were offered a choice between an Lm8,000 salary with private practice and a Lm45,000 salary without private practice - and they consequently chose the former.

MAM said its collective agreement as well as EU employment and anti-discrimination laws prohibited such discriminatory treatment among colleagues doing the same job. This was particularly grave and irregular, it said, because no call for applications for these posts was issued as required by EU directives.

"It is surprisingly naïve to talk about such irregular activity in a public parliamentary debate," MAM said.

While flouting the rules, MAM said, it seemed that the Health Division continued to recruit numerous doctors from Eastern Europe with conditions and payment worse than those of Maltese doctors. "MAM is in fact supporting the claim of these doctors to have the same conditions as Maltese doctors, while insisting that their qualifications are suitably scrutinised in the interest of safe patient care," it said.

MAM said it has repeatedly insisted with the Health Ministry and the Management and Personnel Office at the Office of the Prime Minister on these points, to the extent that legal and industrial action was threatened if the division continued to flout these laws.

MAM challenged the division to make public calls for applications at the salary levels which the minister claimed to have offered to these "chosen consultants". Then it would be known whether the minister's comments were only a weak justification for paying doctors poorly, it said.