Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia on Wednesday congratulated the government for extending the medicinal formulary but expressed doubts about the sustainability of free medicines and surgical supplies.
He noted that for the past three years the budget amounted to €65 million. But between January and September this year, an increase of €6.6 million over the same period last year had already been recorded.
This was mainly due to the ‘pharmacy of your choice’ scheme where more people were applying for the yellow card known as kartuna safra as supported by statistics: 13,000 patients in 2008,; 16,000 in 2009 and 19,000 last year.
In the past, there had even been cases where consultants declared a different type of illness for their patients in order to be entitled for free medicines.
The introduction of psychiatric illnesses in the formulary was a positive step since there was now no need for a patient to declare he was schizophrenic as used to happen in the past.
In 2009, 60 per cent of yellow card users were people suffering from high-blood pressure.
For this condition, expensive and less expensive medicines exist. But in some cases, consultants were prescribing costly medicines without any need, this pushing up expenses.
Dr Farrugia said he was satisfied that the ‘pharmacy of your choice’ scheme was now also present in the central and southern part of Malta.
However, some 900 patients were waiting to apply for the yellow card or to renew it.
He noted that the scheme has not yet been introduced in Paola and 250 people were waiting for the appointment – some having it four months away. He agreed with Justine Caruana (PL) that some diseases were not included in the list, like medicines taken by osteoporosis sufferers.
Referring to hospital admissions, Dr Farrugia said that if one compared the 2000 at St Luke’s Hospital with the 2010 admissions at Mater Dei, the number of people over 60 years of age increased by 32 every day.
This showed a huge problem in demography and thus a sustainable system should be ensured.
He said that as things were progressing, those who were to suffer from a chronic illness in the future would end up not getting any medicine from the state.
During the House Family Affairs Committee meeting the Principal Permanent Secretary Gowdin Grima explained how the public sector was amalgamating family responsibilities with those demanded by the job.
However, although reduced hours and parental leave were family-friendly measures as opposed to teleworking, they led to a decrease in financial income.
The government should see how it could grant certain incentives to employers to adopt family-friendly measures in the right way so that female participation in the employment market could increase.
Dr Farrugia said that early retirement schemes were mostly used when employees were asked to retire due to economic difficulties. It would make sense to make sure that a lower income would not impinge on pensions.
In Clause 9 of the Bill, which talked about persons with disability working in a state-financed residential service, it was clearly stated that when a person with disability was married and his wife did not have a pension, 60 per cent of the person with disability’s pension would go to his wife.
An effort was being done in order to guarantee help and strengthen the marriage institution.
Dr Farrugia said the government had added 250 beds in St Vincent de Paul Residence over a five-year period. However, there was a further need of 170 beds per year.
He argues that in a country with a low fertility rate and a high amount of elderly persons, the budget had to be more oriented for the elderly generation.