Minor operations, such as the removal of cysts, will be carried out at the Mosta health centre by the end of the year, Health Minister Joseph Cassar said.
The centre, which caters for the north of the island, will be refurbished and new services offered as part of the government’s plan to improve primary health care, he said.
The centre will be equipped with a small operating theatre. It will also have a plaster room where patients can be fitted with casts for broken or fractured bones.
Dr Cassar said the restructuring, which would cost €500,000, was one of a chain of projects to better equip health centres around the island. The lack of facilities in these centres is seen as a major contributing factor to overcrowding at Mater Dei Hospital.
Government is trying to instil a culture where people with minor ailments first visit their local health centre.
Last month the hospital adopted a policy whereby people with minor complaints who go to the emergency department in daytime without a doctor’s referral, are sent to a health centre.
Only patients who can be treated at health centres are redirected and those with fractures and dislocations are treated in the hospital.
Mosta is the only health centre equipped with a digital X-ray machine linked to Mater Dei. It was installed in August 2010 and, as from last week, the service is being offered round the clock, Dr Cassar said.
He added that last year almost 40,000 people visited the health centre to see a doctor and some 8,000 used the digital X-ray machine.
Brian St John, from the Foundation for Medical Services, said changes at the Mosta centre will include changing water and electricity, the floor and layout. Edward Borg, chief executive of Primary Health Care, said that during the works in Mosta the majority of services would be transferred to the Birkirkara health centre that will start opening 24 hours a day.
A small prescription clinic, with a doctor and nurse, will remain open in Mosta to serve the locals between Mondays and Friday.
Recently, Medical Association of Malta president Martin Balzan criticised the government for its decision, as part of public expenditure cuts, to reduce the number of doctors at health centres.
Deriding the decision as “misplaced austerity”, Dr Balzan argued it was contradictory to first announce plans to better equip health centres only to then cut down on their medical staff.
When asked about this Dr Cassar directed the question to Mr Borg who said this was not the case and instructions only referred to doctors working extra duties, or overtime.
“The department’s only instructions, sent to senior GPs in health centres, were not to bring in more extra duty doctors than needed to cover the services of that day. We never told them not to bring in the doctors who were necessary,” he said.