Gozo Bishop Mario Grech sounded a warning on the new health poor who renounce medication because they cannot afford it.
He insisted that any reform to the health sector should ensure the poor retain free access to services: "Reforms should not include measures that can crush those who are already downtrodden."
Mgr Grech was speaking this afternoon at a health seminar organised hy the Chamber for Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.
"I cannot offer technical solutions but I have to be the voice of the modern poor," he told an audience made up of health professionals, politicians and private stakeholders.
Mgr Grech quoted the example of a Gozitan single mother who thought twice of visiting a gynaecologist after she was charged double the fee when the doctor realized she was having twins.
In broad appeal he said healthcare had to have a community-based approach that roped in every individual and quoted from an example in Italy where Caritas collected unused medicines from households and these were redistributed by professionals to people in need.
Mgr Grech said the poor should be given enough to cater for their needs, not more not less and made accountable for the help they receive.
He reiterated that it is a grave immoral act to be wasteful with medicines and make irresponsible use of the health service.
The bishop spoke after Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia and Nationalist Party health spokesman Claudio Grech.
Both politicians acknowledged the difficulty of maintaining a free health service as costs will spiral in the future with a growing aging population.
However, they shied away from making any proposals to start charging for health services offered by the public sector, insisting the money should come from cost savings and achieving higher value for money.
Mr Grech said politicians should abandon populist health policies, continuing his conciliatory approach he has shown since starting shadowing the sector.
Dr Farrugia said the government was assessing the possibility of having public hospitals run autonomously and adopting a holistic approach that also tackled the availability of space at homes for the elderly - this will free up beds at hospital occupied by people who have no one or nowhere to go to when discharged.