There is still plenty of room for improvement in our health service and legal system.
Consider the case of an ailing pensioner, or an unwell minimum wage earner or a sick unemployed individual living on benefits, who, on calling their doctor are told that their ill-health requires further medical investigations or a surgical intervention.
The doctor then advises his patients that they have two options – either to wait several months or years to undergo the required medical treatment free of charge through the government health services or they could have the same treatment within a few days through the private sector, but at a hefty price.
The low income sick individuals would feel constrained to choose the latter, as waiting too long for further medical treatment would mean a deterioration of their medical condition, or even death.
Unless medically insured choosing the private sector price would mean either having to obtain a bank loan or asking family and friends to contribute towards the costs.
Our judicial system is also slow. Once a Maltese citizen finds himself embroiled in a court case, there is no knowing when this will be concluded. Judicial procedures are so slow that even cases of the Small Claims Tribunal, which should be a decided in the shortest time possible, are taking more than three years to be settled.
Consequently, claimants of some paltry sums or alleged debtors usually end up paying much more than the alleged sum claimed or sum owed. Some sessions of court proceedings barely last a few minutes and a ridiculously frivolous excuse is concocted for deferment to another date, thereby prolonging such cases further than necessary.
The legal fees involved accumulate to the detriment of the claimant or the alleged debtor. Excessive delays by our judicial institutions have also been criticised by the European Commission, but it seems that reforms in this sector also take a while to be brought about.
While we pride ourselves in being a European country and a civilised nation, our institutions are letting us down. They seem to enjoy playing the waiting game with the citizens of this small nation.
Unfortunately, it’s the public, especially the low income group, who has to suffer from this sort of waiting game.