I have the greatest respect for the nurses, doctors and staff at Mater Dei Hospital and the service they give is second to none. Unfortunately, bad apples there will always be.

I had to take my partner, a female aged 76, to the accident and emergency department on December 22 at about 12.30am. I informed the young receptionist about her asthmatic and bronchitis problem and also produced her ID card. He immediately said there will be a charge of €100 since we are British. I told him that never happened before and I was at Emergency only a week before. He retorted that the charge was introduced two months ago, adding that if I had not been charged that was not his problem and that, anyway, either we pay or my partner will not be seen to.

I informed him we had all the paper work, including the certificate of entitlement and his reply was that if we did not have the documents with us we would have to pay.

His attitude and arrogance was unbelievable.

My partner was seen by excellent doctors and things were sorted out.

On the way out, a female receptionist, accompanied by a security guard, called me. Another row nearly ensued and I had to pay €32.80, which I was told I can claim back from St Luke’s Hospital.

We have lived in Malta for about 10 years and been holidaying here for about 40 years and never come across this sort of attitude before. I wonder whether my partner would have been allowed to die had we did not have any money.

They must have out details in their computers.

The male receptionist needs lessons in courtesy and manners, especially when talking to elderly people in hospital.

I incurred further expenses, having to catch a taxi on Christmas Eve to go to billing section only to be told they would send a cheque. I still had received nothing when I was writing this letter.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.