On September 26, a sick wheelchair-bound 82-year-old patient was discharged from the Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Hospital (SAMOC) after completion of a cycle of chemotherapy.

His wife drove to the SAMOC to pick him up and, finding no parking space, parked the car on the pavement as near to the hospital entrance with a notice prominently displayed behind the car windscreen, signed by a member of the hospital staff, which stated that a patient was being collected.

The patient’s discharge was unavoidably delayed by about a half-hour but, in spite of the explanatory notice, the car was clamped.

It was important to arrive home quickly as ampoules of medication had to be taken home and placed immediately in a refrigerator, but the procedure of lodging a complaint at the KIS Services customer counter (futile), paying the fine and waiting for the clamp to be unlocked meant that the arrival at home of a weakened bed-ridden patient (and his medication) was delayed by at least one hour.

There have been many other horror stories – as that of an octogenarian, disabled by arthritis, who parked his car (with a windscreen disc to show he was disabled) partially overlapping a double-yellow line in the sight of wardens who deliberately waited to pounce on him seconds later as soon as he re-appeared after having picked up a newspaper. 

This kind of heartless money-minded behaviour is unacceptable in situations where compassion is clearly a factor. Have we now stooped to this level in Malta? It is all a matter of money today.