Malta risks losing 60 more doctors by July unless the government gets its act together and implements the agreement it struck last year, the president of the Medical Association of Malta, Martin Balzan, told The Times.
The agreement - signed last November - guaranteed structured postgraduate specialisation training for all doctors who did their housemanship in Malta. But, although the training was due to start in January, this has not happened yet.
Dr Balzan said the authorities were too slow in implementing the training schemes, leaving young doctors wondering whether they will ever be put in place.
"There are too many questions in doctors' minds and, seeing no sign that the agreement will be implemented, they are leaving," Dr Balzan said.
Some 35 students who will be finishing their course this year and 25 other housemen have already expressed interest in moving to the UK because they feel that their chances of getting training jobs would be better. Moreover, all Maltese doctors who applied to work in British hospitals at houseman level have been accepted.
"Let us get on with it. Agreements need to be implemented," Dr Balzan said.
The government, he continued, needs to send the signal that training is going to happen and that it is going to be of a high standard. The appointment of the training coordinators is also taking way too long.
Dr Balzan said the loss of 60 doctors would be very difficult to absorb and would surely affect services. "Doctors are already not coping because the workload is being shared among fewer and fewer doctors," he said, adding that the number of doctors was already inadequate.
Not even the association's warning that this might be a dead end, since postgraduate training jobs in the UK are not easy to get, is stopping young doctors from wanting to pack their bags and go in search of greener pastures. The MAM is trying to convince young doctors that they do have a future in Malta, but it is now up to the government to do its part.
"Our grievance is that the agreement has not yet been implemented, even though I can appreciate that since the agreement was reached there was the migration to Mater Dei Hospital, an electoral campaign and a change in the ministerial team," Dr Balzan said.
The Social Policy Ministry, under which the health sector falls, was contacted yesterday morning with questions on the subject. No replies had been received by late in the day.