I note the recent correspondence about service pensions and the claims of insufficient consultants in some departments at Mater Dei Hospital. The two are not entirely disconnected.

Most consultants with significant clinical experience acquired in the UK national health service tend to return to Malta mainly to build up a private practice, apart from personal and family reasons.

You can’t really blame them when their Malta NHS post carries practically no pension.

Let me explain.

Medical consultants who have worked a significant number of years in both the UK and Malta health services will suffer practically no Maltese social security pension.

Their UK service pension will be deducted from their Malta social security pension (which they paid for), leaving them with practically no Maltese pension for the years of service devoted to the Maltese NHS.

This is due to our 1979 social security legislation requiring all workplace/service pensions be deducted from the mandatory, contributory, social security (so-called, ‘two-thirds’) pension.

Apparently, this 30-year-old-plus legislation was enacted in the name of ‘social solidarity’ and it seems the Maltese courts are still claiming that our mandatory, contributory, social security pension is legally a ‘social solidarity’ and not the workers’ contractual right. Perhaps they would also classify an offshore trust as ‘social solidarity’.

You never know, do you?