'We've been here before' - Labour MP

Opposition health spokesman Michael Farrugia said in Parliament on Wednesday that a memorandum of understanding on the pharmacy of your choice system announced by the Prime Minister two weeks ago was nothing new because a Labour government had already signed an agreement on the same lines with the GRTU and the Chamber of Pharmacists in 1998.

Both organisations had accepted in principle to introduce the pharmacy of your choice as a means for the distribution of medicines given by the national health service and more meetings were to have been held after the 1998 elections to iron out the details, Dr Farrugia said. Following the change of government, Health Minister Louis Deguara had initially sought to keep up the memorandum yet Dr Gonzi had now announced a new MoU with the same two organisations.

Dr Farrugia was speaking during the debate on a Bill to amend the Medicines Act to bring it in line with various EU directives. The debate was opened by Dr Deguara (who was reported yesterday).

Dr Farrugia said there was not much to criticise in this Bill, which was mostly technical, but it was not clear if the Medicines Authority was to take upon itself the onus of establishing the prices of medicines.

He said that Labour agreed with the registration of medicines but disagreed with the way the system was operated and the high fees which were charged initially, a situation which had caused consumer prices to soar and many medicines to disappear from shop shelves. Although the fees had since been reduced, the prices had not. So what was going wrong? The expensive bureacracy needed for registering medicines for such a small market as Malta's was clearly an issue.

Dr Farrugia said that what ultimately concerned the patient most was a particular medicine's effectiveness. But when comparing prices of medicines in Malta and in the EU, it was important to keep in mind the Maltese family's purchasing power.

A new Labour administration would urgently review the registration system with a view to safeguarding the patient in so far as price and choice were concerned. It would also seek to ensure there was competition in the market; that the regulator was efficient and effective and that the Maltese pharmaceutical industry was protected.

When he spoke on the pharmacy of choice scheme, Dr Farrugia said this item had been on the cards for ages. The biggest problems at the time of the Labour government had been the non-availability of 400 medicines because of procurement failures by the previous PN government, an inadequate computerisation system and the fact that in June 1996 the former government had issued a legal notice liberalising the number and location of pharmacies, which had led to industrial action by pharmacists in the private sector. The problem still existed eight-and-a-half years later, with many applications for the opening of pharmacies still pending.

Dr Farrugia said that even in 1998, the fate of pharmacists in government employment had come to the fore, and even then, as now, it had been decided to deploy them as clinical pharmacists in government hospital wards.

Dr Farrugia also referred to last Monday's flooding of parts of Mater Dei Hospital and said the incident was shameful and merited a proper investigation.

He also questioned how the Prime Minister had said that the hospital migration plan was finalised in September last year, only to have Dr Deguara saying recently that talks would be held later this week with the respective unions over the migration project.

The Maltese people had to be taken more seriously than this. In July 2001, then Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami had promised health workers immediate representation because the hospital was meant to open in 2003.

Problems in the nursing complement for the new hospital had long been forecast but not enough had been done to improve supply or even retain the current workforce. Now the government was acknowledging that as many as 300 new nurses were needed.

This meant that Malta would have a new hospital without the necessary preparations having been made on staff levels, Dr Farrugia said.

The debate continues on Monday.