A Labour government would cut the lists of people waiting for a surgical operation by 15 per cent a year, invest in health centres, strengthen community services, increase the number of medicines provided by the state and update the mental health sector.

Addressing a crowded news conference in front of the Gżira health centre where some members of the media were literally crushed by the mass of supporters and unable to take notes, Labour leader Alfred Sant criticised the government saying waiting lists for operations were the biggest proof of the government's failure in the sector.

A Labour government, he said, would embark on a project so that the maximum time a patient would have to wait for an appointment at the outpatients department would not be longer than a month.

He reiterated his party's proposal to house at St Luke's Hospital social cases and disabled persons who did not have anyone to look after them, this despite the fact that the proposal was severely criticised by a number of organisations representing the disabled.

Critics hold that the place for the disabled is in the community.

Dr Sant noted, however, that this would be done until the necessary infrastructure was in place in the community and at St Vincent de Paul.

He pledged to launch a breast screening programme for women with high cancer risk and to strengthen the pharmacist of your choice scheme.

In the past eight years, the number of patients waiting for an operation rose by 10,000, or 200 per cent, he said.

Even though such lists were supposed to be tackled at Mater Dei Hospital because this hospital had more operating theatres, the government confirmed last October that half the theatres would not be running because of a shortage of about 200 nurses.

The Nationalists had been speaking about a lack of nurses for the past 20 years but failed to solve the problem. In September 1988, then Health Minister Louis Galea had boasted that the government was addressing the problem. Then, 16 years later - in January 2004, Health Minister Louis Deguara announced that the government had appointed an international expert to draw up a strategy to overcome the shortage. The problem, however, persists to this very day. Dr Sant referred to the PN's promise to reform health centres in the 1998 electoral manifesto.

But instead of doing so, in 2002 it closed some of them and reduced the services at others on certain hours during the week and all day on Sunday.