(Adds government reply)
The government is to reduce €1.2 million from its planned spending on Mt Carmel Hospital, €500,000 from Karin Grech Hospital, €356,000 from health screening programmes and €300,000 from primary healthcare, the Opposition spokesman for health, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said today.
Speaking at a press conference, Ms Coleiro Preca said such cuts led one to wonder how the government could be believed when it said it wanted to improve services to reduce pressure on Mater Dei Hospital.
Furthermore, the cuts at Mt Carmel Hospital would worsen problems that were already being suffered at the hospital, including inadequate facilities and a shortage of staff.
She said the spending care on primary healthcare would be a third of the budget under this headline.
There will also be a €200,000 cut in spending on the national cancer plan, a €60,000 cut in the allocation for the strategy on obesity, €100,000 from postgraduate training, €20,000 from the budget for the Congress of Nurses and €75,000 from the blood transfusion service..
She also made particular emphasis in the cut in funding for postgraduate training, saying such funds were needed to give new opportunities for doctors and avoid the need for doctors to go abroad to specialise.
Ms Coleiro Preca said these cuts are part of an overall Budget cut of €40 million which the EU demanded of the government in order to ensure that the deficit remained below 3% of GDP.
In a statement, the ministry said that the budget allocated for the health sector this year was €29 million more than it was last year - a total investment of €405.4 million.
It said that more than a million service was given in the community last year with Health Centre doctors examining 427,725 patients, an increase of 129,104 over 2008.
Public clinic (bereg) doctors carried out 155,187 examinations in 2008, which number rose to 192,229 last year. Moreover, 12,555 home visits were carried out by health centre doctors last year to patients who could not get out of their home.