Washing dirty linen in public

I read Jean Pierre Farrugia’s contribution (May 14) regarding my article Mismanaging Health Services (May 6) with great interest.

To put the record straight, I never doubted Dr Farrugia’s honest intent to safeguard the patients’ interests. I never questioned the reasons why Dr Farrugia opposed the extremely important primary health care reform proposal. However, I never expected that the White Paper on primary health care would be published without proper prior internal consultation, at least with the MPs concerned, in the said field. This incident was one of a series of similar episodes within this legislature that exposed the internal rifts that exist among the government MPs. At least, I never expected that members of the country’s highest institution would resort to washing their dirty linen in public.

Apparently, the Ombudsman’s report regarding community health shortcomings was tabled in Parliament last week and it reiterates that primary health care reform could not take place until the e-medicine network is in place and that there are not enough human resources to set up group practices.

So after four years in this legislature, GonziPN realises that an electoral promise that had been pivotal to the 2008 election victory could have never come to fruition because the necessary ingredients are not available now, in 2012, let alone back then. So what guarantee does the Maltese electorate have that the PN electoral promises for the next general election are doable, let alone kept? Winning power on false promises is not ethical, to say the least.

Dr Farrugia admits that the Malta Information Technology Agency is yet to decide on an important tender regarding the integrated health information system phase 2 after almost two and a half years, exactly from December 2010. Can any government official enlighten us on the reasons why, please?

Anyway, a good number of countries with populations ranging in the tens of millions have a well set and functioning primary health care system that has been in force way before internet was conceived let alone e-medicine. Improving the health care system for a population of a mere 400,000 people is not an impossible task and we would definitely not be reinventing the wheel.

I reiterate that the internal squabbles would go down in history books as the main characteristic of the GonziPN legislature with several MPs being sidelined and feeling very lonely within the PN parliamentary group. The number of present MPs within the PN group who will not contest the next general election would just prove my point.