Thursday, 17th July 2008
Are we being served?
The controversy is on. Are we among the most or the least taxed of this world? Are we taxed too much or too little? I think that the answer to this question does not depend just on the amount of taxes we pay but on the quality of service we get. The basic question is: Are we getting value for money?
The following are just few examples and not a comprehensive answer.
1. Very well served
The country is very badly served by the members of the Public Transport Federation but is being very well served by Minister Austin Gatt. Such monopolies are no longer acceptable. The use of violence to defend monopolies is reprehensible. The newspaper reports on violent incidents perpetrated by the members of the Public Transport Association do nothing but increase the popular sentiment against them. The disturbances in front of Dr Gatt's house during the night are to be condemned. Those who think that Minister Gatt will be intimidated by such tactics show that they do not know the man. Minister Gatt deserves all our solidarity.
The country is also being well served by the police who have already arraigned before the courts a number of people.
2. Lasciate ogni speranza …
The Editor of The Sunday Times (July 13) took to task one of the holy old cows of our society: the courts and the judicial system. His was a balanced, strong, fair and courageous editorial comment. Can anyone with his hand across his heart say that we are getting good service at the Law Courts? How can we get good service if the law courts are the place where time stands still?
He deserves support and the subject demands follow up from the readers.
I had written on the subject in one of my earliest blogs (23/11/07). I had written about the spirited defence that Ms Marlene Mizzi understandably made of her husband Magistrate Tonio Mizzi in an article published in Malta Today. Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco and Magistrate Mizzi are publicly defying the Commission for the Administration of Justice. Ms Mizzi pooh-poohed the “infringement” justifying their behaviour because they are among those members of the judiciary who have “innate integrity”. I think that this is not enough, How can they expect us to respect them while they abusively ignore this Constitutionally set up body?
Let me reproduce part of what I wrote that day:
“The situation (in the Courts) is worrying to the extreme. Those who use the services of the Courts now are faced by this situation:
- A rational and logical conclusion of Ms Mizzi’s article makes them believe that there are members of the judiciary who do not have “innate integrity”.
- According to the Commission for the Administration of Justice two of those who (according to Ms Mizzi) have this gift are not behaving ethically!
- A judge was sent to prison for, let’s say, unbecoming behaviour and another one is awaiting trail for the same activity.
- Another judge was saved from impeachment by the votes of the Opposition in Parliament.
A worrying situation indeed!”
2. The devil is in the detail
Great projects rise and fall not on the sturdiness or beauty of their physical structures but on the service they give to common blokes like you and me. Mater Dei is a great project. State of the art, all say. Is service of a similar nature? Minister John Dalli has described the hospital as a part time hospital and described the long waiting lists as scandalous. None of this augurs good service.
It does not speak well of the way the Nationalist government was running the country prior to the elections since concurrently with the opening of the hospital government signed a number of agreements with doctors, nurses and other staff. These were generous agreements. The one with doctors and consultants will continue to haunt government for quite some time. Other professions would want to receive the same goodies that were handed out to the consultants serving in hospitals. For government those are pleasures yet to come. Besides, very few consultants opted to work full time. How was the government so naïve as to believe that most consultants would work full time with government thus opting to cut their income by bundles? A cursory look at their income tax returns should have shown the light of day to government which in this instance managed to get it burned from both ends.
It seems that while the hospital building was upgraded to the skies and the wages and financial packages were greatly improved the work practices stayed as the guests of the Flintstones. These out dated work practices and management systems translate in lack of adequate service.
3. Expired medicines
Let me give two examples from a section that costs the taxpayer millions of euros i.e. distribution of free medicines. Up till March 2008 patients on Clinutren Nestle were being given packs with an August expiry date. Than in May someone discovered that there was stock expiring in May. Those responsible started distributing these in a panic. It would have made more sense to distribute these in March. Was there any wastage?
Same thing happened with the very expensive drug Betainterferon. Four months ago the hospital authorities introduced the new method of injecting the drug. This method is easier to administer and less painful. It was very welcome by the two or three score who use it. We were on par with the rest of the world.
Then someone found out that there was a large stock of the medicines that had been used before the latest innovation. It is said that the stock cost tens of thousands of euros. These are being distributed now i.e. months after the patients had become accustomed to the new method. This discomfort could have easily been avoided had whoever was responsible did his work well.
4. The miracle workers
On the other hand every euro cent that is spent on Zammit Clapp Hospital is giving us the tax payers a hundredfold back. It is a fantastic hospital. Patients are treated as human beings. They are treated with care and love on top of a very high professional standard. Is it perfect? Nothing is perfect in this world but ZCH comes as close to perfection as a man-made institution can be.
I say this through experience. I am spending hours there every day as my father is a patient at the hospital. I share with you what I see and listen too. And this is not just my reaction. All the people I speak to say the same thing.
I would like to say a big thank you to the staff of St Joseph’s Ward. Thank you for your dedication, professionalism and care for all those needing your services. I dedicate a special word of thanks to Dr Antoine Vella. He is a gem of a doctor. The way he treats patients is fantastic. I stop here not to embarrass him with too many compliments.
5. Best and worse
The electronic ID office in St Paul’s Street, Valletta is the paragon of efficiency. They are very quick and very helpful. On the contrary the VAT’s e-services department is very inefficient. I applied for a service on July 8 and it was activated Monday 14 July.
PS On Radio 101 during the press analysis programme last Sunday one of the guests said that it could be that terrorists are being infiltrated in Malta through illegal immigration. How stupid can one be?
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Comments
My opinion is that doctors in Malta are following the general trend in all the world. Medicine has become a business and is not longer a humane profession. As with most other 'professions', morality and ethics have been deleted and money, in whichever means earned, is the only true final aim. I spent 6 months doing voluntary work with the poor in Brazil in 2006. The situation there is not different, and not only with medicine, but also with other professions, including the spiritual ones. As in most countries, including our little island, corruption is an acceptable part of life, and that, in due time, brings misery.
For example, talking of queing, it is a problem which you meet today even in UK - Blaire promised to reduce the waiting list in his last campaign!
I obviously don´t know the details of the medical structure in Malta - I am away for 24 years now. But still I dare say that : (1) no doctor in this planet earth should die without never serving in the public system; and (2) even the most busy doctor should feel it his duty - and the public system should encourage this financially of course - to give a percentage of his time to the public service throughout all his life, if he judges that his service is imporant for humanity; (3) I include her even the pensioners if they themselves still enjoy good healthy.
I thank Dr.Saliba for his contribution. After the holidays, this BLOG should resume the debate.
Fr.John Caruana
I am a doctor of the old school believeing that a doctor's mission is akin to that of the priesthood. I worked as a private practice for next to nothing because many families were poor. I was one of the hospital doctors who in those days was paid less than the gatekeeper but who regularly served at St Luke Hospital day and night continuously for three successive days. We did not go on strike but worked for nothing until a slightly better salary was approved in the following budget.
Those days are long gone and society is the loser. What brought on the change was not a change in the doctors' mentality. It was the direct result of a disgraceful campaign of incitement to class hatred against all professionals and sheer economic necessity.
Does the Minister know that there are more "Bus Owners' Licences" in issue than there are buses actually in operation? Does he know that some persons have retained their very valuable licence witout owning a bus to operate after their original bus has been scrapped? What is he planning to do about this abuse?
Are we all to be held to ransom through our taxes to subsidies people who are not giving the nation any service? Stop this abuse now. We demand it as it is us who are suffering from being overtaxed.
Fr.John Caruana
carjohn@teracom.com.br
Fuller utilisation of the expanded hospital facilities requires a corresponding expansion of the staff complement to work shifts round the clock not the same number of people working for interminable hours under the stressful conditions of our main government hospital. You can squeeze a lemon so far, but no further. Otherwise the medical brain drain will continue according to the law of supply and demand.