I have two suggestions for Health Minister Joe Cassar, which I believe should be implemented as soon as possible.

Billing: I think that the cost of the free health service received should be advised to each patient. Once a patient is discharged s/he should be handed over a detailed bill of the treatment received and which was paid for by the taxpayers. One does not realise the cost of treatment one receives. We have a state-of-the-art public hospital (best service, best nursing, best doctors and best surgeons) and running it is costing us, the taxpayers, a great deal of money. Not to mention the free medical supplies through the pharmacy of our choice.

Insurance. The government should ask all patients if they are covered by private health insurance. If yes, then the private health insurance should foot the bill whether in part or in whole. I have my own private insurance so that I can use any hospital of my choice. Be it public hospital/clinic or private hospital/clinic, it all depends on how fast I need the treatment or the doctor or surgeon of my choice. It is true that I paid health insurance to the government during the course of my working days but once I am still paying for a private insurance policy why not refund back some, if not all, of the cost of the free service to the government? Having said this, the government, on the other hand, should then give the taxpayer a tax rebate for the cost of the health insurance premium paid, once a claim by the government was made. In no way am I implying that the government should start charging us for the free service but we need to know that the “free” service is costing the government or us, the taxpayers, to the tune of €306.7 million (vide Statement B of the Budget – Recurrent Expenditure 2011, under vote 42).