Victoria’s polyclinic

Rumours are rife with the silly idea of re-locating the Victoria polyclinic to the maintenance area at the back of the Gozo General Hospital. It is true that the polyclinic is becoming too cramped for the hundreds of patients who use it but it should be enlarged rather than relocated.

The polyclinic’s location is ideal for patients, being within easy walking distance from the bus station and the parking areas of Victoria. It is also on one of the main through roads and is easily accessed by tourists visiting our island.

Surely it is not impossible to acquire a couple more rooms adjoining these premises from the old hospital buildings/ ministry offices, to convert it to be able to meet the required standards?

What is also important is to beef up the medical staff so as to have enough personnel available to reduce the waiting times. Properly trained paramedics, for example, can do a lot to alleviate doctors from doing clerical work.

The location of the Gozo polyclinic, in the heart of Victoria, is also ideal for all of these walk-in patients who have to attend clinics. It is a fact that most of these are elderly, and re-locating the policlinic to the Gozo General Hospital will cause extreme undue hardship for them to walk all the way over there, way out of town, to have their needs attended to.

It seems that this idea has been thought up by some bureaucrat from behind a laptop over in Malta. This is not the way to deal with problems in Gozo. We have had similar situations, where such impractical ideas were hatched with no consideration as to how they are going to affect the Gozitans.

To quote Gozo Minister Anton Refalo: no one is more qualified to address problems in Gozo than us Gozitans. Let us hope that common sense prevails, and this idea be scrapped for a more patient-friendly alternative.