Three months into my being elected to Parliament and chosen by our Prime Minister to be Parliamentary Secretary for Health, I wished to share some thoughts with the readers of this paper after an absence of some months.

First of all my apologies for not having found the time to put pen to paper and share some ideas with you but, as you can imagine, I was busily settling into my new role.

I have done some stock taking and soul searching over the past months to see why some problems in our health system continue to resurface without finding long-lasting solutions. After having met with the different sectors in health and talked to the workers in their environment, I have realised how easy it is to misinterpret the situation and create a sense of sensationalism in the media, which, in turn, generates unrest and uneasiness.

When dealing with health as a subject one has to be careful and as objective as possible. One of the major challenges faced by service providers is adapting to a new hospital environment, novel health systems and higher expectations from the service users. This is all very positive, while keeping in mind that these factors imply change.

Change scares everyone. It is human nature that even when something new comes along, questions arise. This explains why marriage is classified among the 10 biggest stressors in the world. Albeit, being a positive experience, the change it provokes creates stress.

In November 2007, Malta unveiled its new acute care hospital - Mater Dei Hospital. The total cost of the hospital was €560 million. This hospital has been designed, constructed and equipped to high standards. Its campus extends over 23,200 square metres and is located next to the University of Malta, creating a truly effective adjacency of the academic and clinical medical community.

This 850-bed hospital serves all the population's acute medical needs and houses almost all specialties and sub-specialties required for the delivery of effective health care for the 400,000 local population and for the multitude of visitors to our shores.

It possesses 14 in-patient operating theatres, a large dedicated day care suite, extensive intensive care services for adults and children, cardiac and neurological facilities, renal dialysis and transplantation services, a fully equipped accident and emergency room, out-patients and many other facilities associated with a hospital of this size and status as the main public, state-owned hospital in the country. These features position Mater Dei Hospital as Malta's foremost medical centre of excellence.

The size of the hospital and facilities exceed the needs of the local community.

Malta has the vision that, if appropriately developed and partnered, this could become the Mediterranean's foremost medical centre with potential to become the destination referral centre.

The above surely reflects a superlative statement about our hospital. During my first three months as parliamentary secretary responsible for health, one of the major priorities was meetings with specialised people who pooled their ideas around ways of improving work practices for our hospital.

Changing work practices is a mammoth task which requires courage, will and determination for all concerned.

Let us act together to support each other to make our health services the envy of the Mediterranean region.

Let me end with a quote from William Ngwako Maphoto: "Change is inevitable... adapting to change is unavoidable, it's how you do it that sets you together or apart".

Dr Cassar is Parliamentary Secretary for Health.