Various letters published on local papers have recently shown the great disappointment for the abrupt stopping of free aerobics to music evening classes.

During the past year, the Health Promotion Department (HPD) was offering free aerobics classes to all Maltese citizens. These proved to be very popular and successful. This was made possible by the generosity of six local councils that offered their spacious premises for this short-lived great initiative. The councils that participated were: Birkirkara, Mosta, Naxxar, Floriana, Fgura and Zejtun. These councils understood that Malta has high rates of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even depression, all of which can be lowered by regular physical activity. Furthermore, they even extended their generosity by permitting residents from other localities in Malta and Gozo to make use of their facilities.

Each aerobics class consisted of 16 free one-hour sessions spread throughout a period of not less than eight weeks. Each group could hold about 20 or more participants. All that HPD was paying for was the remuneration of the aerobics instructors.

As a sports doctor I assure the government that these ongoing aerobics classes were going to save millions of Euros from the financial burden on Mater Dei for the simple reason that it is medically proved that regular physical activity helps lower these non-communicable diseases mentioned above. As the old saying goes, "prevention is better than cure".

Unfortunately, we have very short-sighted, money-minded health authorities that took a foolish decision to abruptly stop this free service early this year without at least having the decency to inform the general public by issuing a press release. This means that people still kept on applying for these aerobics classes and hence had to do a medical clearance certificate before applying. Such certificates can easily fetch €10 and are very rarely done by health centre doctors for the simple reason that the doctor needs to know their medical history.

The irony is that presently the HPD is sending a booklet to medical doctors titled, "Physical Activity: A Guide for Professionals". This booklet lays particular emphasis on the importance of aerobics as the "best form of exercise to control weight and keep heart healthy". The same booklet says: "regular physical activity is a cost-effective way of improving and maintaining people's health".

I therefore urge the government to reconsider seriously the decision it is making if it does not want further people to visit Mater Dei and end up taking more expensive medicines as well. Last but not least, an article on a paper gave serious doubts that this service may restart but at a price! The first step is to, at least, have the decency of removing the application forms from the SAHHA website and inform the WHO that the classes have been stopped as they keep on proclaiming them as a ongoing success story!!

I finally want to stress on the fact that the professional way the exercise to music classes were conducted with regular monitoring of the participants' health progress in addition to the medical filtering before one applied (for the ultimate benefit of the patient's health after all) is more the prerogative of the Ministry of Social Policy (Health) rather than that of any sport authority.