Special allocation to reduce hospital waiting lists

The government is to allocate special funding of €4 million to reduce hospital waiting lists, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said this evening.

"Government is committed to give absolute priority to reductions in waiting lists to acceptable levels in three years. We have already started working to achieve this objective. Now we are allocating a further €4 million to address waiting lists," he said in the BUdget speech.

He said that in the medicines sector, the government was preparing the necessary mechanism so that decisions for the introduction of new medicines and new technologies would be based on relative evidence and efficiency.

He said that €3 million would be allocated for new medicines in the Government's formulary. During this year,he said, the Government allocated another 11 million euro to reduce creditors in this area.

"We are now allocating €61 million for 2010 to ensure the credit days are reduced to 120 days."

He said the pharmacy of your choice system, in the coming year, would be further extended to reach 50,000 new patients with an additional expenditure of almost a million euro.

A new Blood Transfusion Centre would be built at a cost of €1.5 million euro.

The government would shortly issue a consultation document on primary health care reform.

The infrastructure at Karin Grech Hospital was being improved for use until the construction of a rehabilitation centre with all the amenities required for persons recovering from illnesses or serious treatment. The services provided at Żammit Clapp Hospital would be transferred to Karin Grech Hospital so that everything would be located under the same roof.

Other plans included the building of a new cancer facility within Mater Dei Hospital.

€1.6 million were being allocated for worker training, the minister said.

Mr Fenech said that to date, suicide cases or suicide attempts were handled by the police. The Government believed that it should create a Crisis Intervention Service so that these persons could be treated by specially trained professionals.