The Opposition’s spokesman for health, Claudio Grech, is of the opinion that medicines “which are cheap” should no longer be given free by the government.

My reply is this: we have no cheap medicine in Malta. We have about the costliest medicine products in Europe if not the world.

What may seem to be ‘cheap medicines’ in this country could very well cost double and treble what the same medicine would cost in other EU member states.

I’ll give just a few examples.

Amaryl, 1mg tablets x 30, cost €5.71 in Malta but they sell at €2.84 in Portugal.

Otosporin eardrops x 5ml cost €4.14 here and in Spain €1.51.

Pro-Viro 25mg tablets x 30 are priced at €7.96 in this country but in Spain €3.73.

Cultivate cream 0.05% x 15g: sell at €5.09 in Malta; €3 in Portugal and €3.49 in Italy.

Locoid Lipocream 0.1% x 30g in Malta costs €6.39 while in Portugal it costs €2.88 and in Italy €3.25.

I could carry on but this gives readers a good idea of the scandalous medicine prices in Malta. In some cases, the difference between the prices in Malta and those in EU states such as Spain, Portugal and Italy is mind boggling – up to seven times more! And, yet, journalists and presenters of current affairs programmes on both the national and private TV stations seem not to be interested in trying to get at the root of this daylight robbery.

Perhaps Grech would have been of better service had he tried to get to the bottom of this enormous problem for all the Maltese people since we all need medicines from time to time.