Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia yesterday had a teary-eyed moment as he spoke about how hard it was to leave his patients behind for a political career.

Patients become your best friends

Formerly a Żebbuġ mayor and popular family doctor, Dr Farrugia was forced to give up his day job as a general practitioner to assume a ministerial post.

Unlike his Cabinet colleague, Parliamentary Secretary and ophtalmologist Franco Mercieca, Dr Farrugia has not been granted a prime ministerial waiver exempting him from the ministerial code of ethics’ employ-ment provisions.

Questioned at a press conference, Dr Farrugia defended Dr Mercieca, saying he was the “king” of his medical field.

He, however, admitted that getting used to not being a GP – “settling out”, as he put it – had been harder than the process of settling in to his ministerial role.

“Patients become your best friends,” he told journalists. He described overhearing two young girls asking their grandparents, former patients of his, why they had said that “Godfrey is gone [Godfrey baħħ]”.

The anecdote was just too much for the minister, bringing tears to his eyes as he struggled to recom-pose himself.

But any suggestions that Dr Farrugia was thinking of swapping his Cabinet seat for a stethoscope were wide off the mark, a ministry spokesman told The Times.

“The minister has never and is not considering leaving the Cabinet to return to being a GP. As a minister responsible for the health sector, he is there to ensure a better health service to all patients,” the spokesman said.