(Adds PL statement)
The Prime Minister this morning reiterated his committment to ensuring that the health service in Malta remained the best and continued to be offered free of charge.
Speaking during a dialogue meeting at Mosta, Dr Gonzi said health was the main priority for the Nationalist government and his government invested more than €1 million a day in the service.
Focusing on cancer, he said this was a destructive disease which affected many families. The government was helping fight it through the provision of free medicine, including Hercepting which cost thousands of euros per pill, and a breast screening programme. Since 2009, 117 women were found to be in the early stages of cancer.
Dr Gonzi said that 76,000 people collected their free medicine from the pharmacy of their choice last year with the number of pharmacies in the scheme now numberging 159. This meant an additional expense of €2 million.
The Prime Minister said that the number of operations had increased as had follow-ups and visits to the Outpatients Department, which reached 524,000 last year. This was more than double the 252,000 visits in 2007, the last full year of St Luke’s Hospital.
Being a sensitive party, the Prime Minister said, his government wanted health services to be available to all and health centre doctors last year carried out 12,555 home visits as patients could not get out of their homes
He said that last year 44,000 operations were carried out, an increase of 11,000 on the number that used to be carried out at St Luke’s Hospital.
Health centres were now to be further elevated since doctors were to be able to access all their patients' files.
Children were also being taught how to eat healthily at schools.
Health Minister Joe Cassar said that 44,000 people were operated upon at Mater Dei last year, 11,000 more than in the last full year of St Luke's Hospital.
Last year there were nine million intervention or visits by professionals in the health care system and almost 400,000 patients were seen.
The minister said that a tender for the Mosta Healthcare Centre to be revamped was issued earlier this week.
In a statement, the Labour Party said GonziPN should explain how the quality of the health sector was to be retained with an €8.5 million cut in funds.
It should explain from which sectors was the cut to be made. The PL said it seemed GonziPN was not listening to the people who were suffering and was being a miser with patients, professionals and health workers.