Speaking about the need for a better health service, the new Parliamentary Secretary for Health Chris Fearne said in an interview last week (‘Our enemy is disease, not the nurses union’ (The Sunday Times of Malta, April 6), that: “The problems are compounded by the fact that health centres were starved from any meaningful investment over the past 25 years, a situation that has led to almost 70 per cent of patients turning up at Mater Dei’s emergency department without a referral”.

He might be right and he might be wrong. It is not for me judge.

However, I thought, surely the closing down of two Church hospitals, the Blue Sisters and St Catherine, which between them had about 200 beds, ‘compounded the problems’ of the health service in Malta?

This all occurred practically on the eve of the start of the 25-year ‘disastrous regime’ he is referring to. It is for readers to judge.