As the government revs up its rhetoric over plans to help promote the development of a medical healthcare sector through new investment in Malta and in Gozo, the impression may be given that the island’s health service is among the best in the EU.
The situation on the ground is different. Malta’s healthcare service has huge problems. The most serious over the long-term is its sustainability. Of immediate concern, however, are overcrowding, long waiting times and political interference.
Malta has slipped one place in the Euro-health consumer index and the report about the island’s service is none too complimentary.
In just one sentence, the report demolishes all of the government’s self-praise about the work it has been doing to improve the service. In spite of some improvements, it says: “most of the weaknesses we have identified for several years still remain”.
Overcrowding at Mater Dei Hospital has led to patients being left in corridors, a matter that has still not been resolved. It is pointless for the government to blame the previous administration for this because it has already had two-and-a-half years to try and deal with the problem.
Since it had been well aware of the overcrowding problem at the hospital, mainly brought about by the number of elderly patients left there as they have nowhere else to go, it could have sought to remedy the situation by providing alternative refuge.
New wards are now being built and maybe the government will finally find a way of resolving a situation that could have been tackled with much greater urgency had it really believed in its own words, that is, to provide a “high quality” health service.
Patients left in corridors are stripped of their dignity, something that ought to touch the minds and hearts of all those who are responsible for the running of the health service, starting with the health minister. Absolutely no patient would want to end up in a corridor.
There have been improvements in some particular lines, such as in the range and reach of services and in addressing the diabetes problem. The health index report admits that the health administration has become more active in prevention. However, it makes it clear that “waiting times are too long and medical outcomes not even mediocre”.
There is more in the report that is of great concern. It said infant deaths, a very revealing indicator, were still alarmingly high at a level otherwise known only in poor South-Eastern Europe. “When we started to observe the Maltese healthcare performance we often heard the assurance that the new Mater Dei Hospital… would mean a big change and do away with hospital infections and poor treatment outcomes. This was 2007. We now have the sad record: very little has really improved. Malta is in need of a radical healthcare overhaul.”
In the light of all this, the government ought to concentrate first on ways and means of improving the service. Having a mediocre service is not a good advertisement for Malta.
As to the sustainability of the health service, no administration has had the courage tackle the problem with the kind of seriousness it deserves. Former hospital chief executive officer Joe Caruana could not be more categorical when he said that free healthcare was unsustainable, no matter how politicians tried to portray it.
Since votes count more than anything else, it is very unlikely that any government will want to address the matter before it is forced to – even though it is imperative to start tackling the problem now.