The high number of appointments missed by patients at Mater Dei revealed that people had lost faith in the government’s community care strategy, shadow health minister Claudette Buttigieg said today.

Addressing a press conference outside Mater Dei Hospital, Ms Buttigieg said patients were being made to wait too long to be diagnosed.

She was referring to a report by this newspaper that 60,000 specialist appointments had been missed by patients last year.

Medical Association General Secretary Martin Balzan had told the Times of Malta that patients were not showing up for the appointments because these were being set for several months after their original referral.

The long waiting list for an initial diagnosis saw the wealthy turn to the private sector, but hit those at risk of poverty the hardest.

Reacting, Ms Buttigieg said the government was failing the 100,000 people living at risk of poverty.

“Maybe [Prime Minister] Joseph Muscat thinks that people also have hidden offshore companies and trusts,” Ms Buttigieg said, referring to the Panama Papers scandal which involves Health Minister Konrad Mizzi.

Ms Buttigieg said she had spoken to several doctors and nurses about the situation, many of whom had raised concerns about the quality of care at Mater Dei.

She said some doctors were being made to see many more patients as not enough consultants were being appointed. This had repercussions on the quality of the service, she said.

Ms Buttigieg was asked by the press to react to claims by Dr Balzan that new consultants were not being appointed, because of government cost cutting.

“If this is true, then it is very worrying. This government has been more than willing to spend money on far less important matters than health care,” she said.

GOVERNMENT'S STATEMENT

In a reply, the health parliamentary secretary said that it was obvious that the government’s success in the health sector was bothering the Opposition.

In 2015, more than 90,000 were admitted to Mater Dei while the Out Patients Departments saw around half a million people.

The number of operations at Mater Dei increased from 45,000 in 2012 to 53,000 in 2015, MRIs from 6,000 in 2012 to 20,000 in 2015, cataract operations from 1,000 in 2008 to 3,800 in 2015.

The waiting list dropped from four years in 2013 to four months in 2015.
While there were 285 specialists at Mater Dei in 2013, there were 343 last year.