Dr Martin Balzan, in his official capacity as president of the Medical Association of Malta (MAM), launched a personal attack on my integrity (August 24). Yet he failed to justify the major flaw with the eligibility criteria for hospital consultants I highlighted in my letter of August 15. Having been registered for over two years, this flaw no longer affects me personally, but that does not make it any less misguided.
A number of articles had been published labelling me as “unqualified” to be appointed consultant. I wrote my letter to prove that I was anything but unqualified, and indeed had been a consultant in the UK for over a year at the time of application in 2010. Any reasonable person reading my previous letter will know that, as on this occasion, I was simply refuting unfounded allegations against me when no one else did.
How can a doctor, who does not work in private practice, be accused of self-promotion when defending his name in a newspaper published in a country where he does not practise medicine and not read by his patients? I recall no public warning to doctors whose careers and achievements are regularly featured in local newspapers, a practice which I am proud to have always avoided.
The second point I addressed was the flawed eligibility criteria for hospital consultants in Malta. This issue remains unanswered and bears repeating. I will use as an example the job in upper gastrointestinal surgery, as no appointments were made, to make clear that I am not referring to any individual.
How can MAM find acceptable a situation where a fully trained upper gastrointestinal surgeon who has worked independently as a consultant for, say, almost two years, is ineligible to be considered for a job in Malta which is identical to what he or she is already doing?
At the same time, a general surgeon with two years’ post-registration general surgical experience (but no experience of gastric or oesophageal surgery) is eligible, but if appointed could not take up the post until trained, at significant cost to the taxpayer, for a number of years.
After this delay, and assuming successful completion of training, you have an upper gastrointestinal surgeon with no independent experience, while the originally ineligible candidate (who was considered ineligible with almost two years’ independent experience) has amassed a further number of years’ experience.
This discriminates against the more highly trained individual, and delays the availability of services to the public. You pay more, wait much longer, and still have an appointee with less independent experience. This is absurd and cannot be right. Where else in the EU does this happen?
It is the Health Division on behalf of the public, not MAM, that seeks to appoint hospital consultants. It is now incumbent on the Health Division to urgently re-evaluate these criteria. It must do so before issuing any more calls for application. Nothing less will do.