Malta slips to 20th place in EU healthcare list

An EU-wide health consumer index ranking public health services in the 27 EU member states plus Switzerland and Norway shows that Malta has slipped to 20th place from the 13th position it occupied in the same survey last year. The 2007 health consumer index was published yesterday in Brussels by the Health Consumer Powerhouse, a Brussels-based independent analysis and information organisation.

Malta's placing is still better than many of the new EU member states, excluding Cyprus and Estonia, and its health services rank better than the one in Slovenia and Greece.

Commenting on the Maltese result, Johan Hjertqvist, president of the Health Consumer Powerhouse, said that "antibiotic resistant infection rates in Malta need to be reduced and Malta will do well to look at the approach being adopted in northern Scandinavia and the Netherlands".

Mr Hjertqvist said that experience shows that small healthcare systems, such as that in Malta, have the capacity to quickly change course and improve.

"An example of such an improvement in the Maltese healthcare policy could be to speed up the bureaucracy which prevents new medicines rapidly entering the public subsidy scheme," he said.

The survey measures a total of 27 healthcare indicators across the services granted in the 29 European countries, sub-divided into five clusters related to patient rights and information, waiting time for treatment, outcomes, generosity of the system and pharmaceuticals.

According to the index, Malta performed best in indicators such as the right to a second medical opinion, information available on the web and telephone on a 24-hour basis, a family doctor same-day treatment, cancer therapy in less than 21 days from diagnoses and the provision of dental care.

On the other hand, it was given poor marks for various other indicators such as a no-fault malpractice insurance covering the carers and medical staff, access to own medical records, direct access to specialists, MRI scans in under seven days, heart infarct mortality, MRSA infections, new cancer drugs deployment speed and access to new drugs.

According to the survey's global results, Austria ranked as the best provider of public healthcare combining excellent outcomes with consumer orientation. Austria is followed closely by the Netherlands and France.

On the other side of the scale, Latvia and Bulgaria have the worst healthcare systems.