1st June 2008
The Malta Independent On Sunday
The Malta Independent On Sunday
The
MLP leadership election has
deservedly occupied much of the news space over the last two months. Hopefully
this chapter will be closed before the coming weekend.
I have already expressed my view that George Abela offers Labour the best prospects for success irrespective of the PN government’s performance. Any other candidate would leave Labour’s future hostage to fortune, as his or her success at the next election would need substantial assistance from the government through sub-standard performance in the course of this legislature. Labour must aim to win by merit. Winning by default is a volatile concept too risky to rely on, as the result of the March 2008 election has shown.
The only thing I would add today is that I agree with the MLP election commission’s decision prohibiting the leadership candidates from live direct participation in Xarabank. I have always had the view that Xarabank’s format produces more entertainment than information and the leadership election is no circus. Personally, I have participated very frequently in Bondi’s discussion programmes but always refused Xarabank’s invitations, as the atmosphere there is not conducive to meaningful discussion.
The election commission should have however put together a programme where an independent moderator puts the same questions to all contenders with strict time limits for their answer. And the medium for such a programme should have been One TV. What Xarabank then decides to do on the subject without the direct participation of the contestants in the studio is no matter for the electoral commission to interfere with.
Life goes on and the honeymoon period for the new Gonzi administration is now over. Reality is hitting home. The rose-tinted view of the world, which was so predominant in the election campaign, is gradually being replaced by a more pragmatic but darker view of the challenges that await us.
Social Policy Minister John Dalli described the hospital waiting lists this week as “scandalous”, saying it was unheard of that one had to wait up to five years for certain operations. Unheard of? I do not think these waiting lists mushroomed in the last three months. They were there and Labour’s ineffective campaign made no issue to show that the supposedly free health service is in fact scandalous.
However, I was under the impression that the long waiting list and sub-standard service were restricted to certain types of surgery, like hip replacement, where waiting was not a matter of life or death though still very relevant for the quality of the patient’s life.
I was wrong. The shabby service at Mater Dei is now spilling all over the place. Take what this blogger wrote last Thursday (29 May) in a publicly accessible blog: “A few days before Easter my wife drove me to Mater Dei Emergency as I was suffering from a colic attack. We got there at 5pm; after six hours of waiting we were told we had to wait for approx three more hours to be seen to. Everyone could see I was in absolute pain could not even talk with pain. At last my family took me to a private hospital where I was operated on. It cost me over 1000 euros. Well Mr Dalli who is going to refund me the cost of the operation? There were over eight security officers doing nothing, the customer care girl kept disappearing and there was no one around to check the real emergency cases. WHAT A SHAME...”
What’s the point of having a free service if you cannot get it when you really need it? This is not an isolated case. Similar letters of complaint are appearing in the press with increased frequency. Hospitals are not merely beautiful buildings and state of the art equipment. Above all they should be systems and service; efficient, effective and timely service.
This leads me to another point that needs to be remembered. Let’s stop saying that the government is delivering a free health service. It is certainly not free as the taxpayer is paying for every cent spent. And increasingly it is not a health service, as the experience of the above blogger is forcing more and more people to take out private health insurance even though they are supposedly entitled to free health service courtesy of the taxpayer.
In reality many people are paying twice for health services. We are paying as taxpayers to fund the running expenses of our hospitals and health centres. And we are paying our private health insurance schemes because we do not believe that the “free” health service will meet our expectations of effectiveness and timeliness when we need them.
It is time for our politicians to come off their high horse of false social morality and be totally frank and honest with the electorate on whether the taxpayer (not the government) can really afford to provide free and efficient health service to all who need it, irrespective of social standing. If it remains free and scandalous then basically it is not free at all. It is doubly expensive, as this blogger has found to his cost.
I am fed up of promises of free this and free that, without making it clear that nothing is really free and that lack of resources mean that those who have no resources have to wait a scandalous number of years to get access to such free service, while those who can afford it are taking out private insurance as they doubt the reliability of the supposedly free service.
Is this situation socially acceptable? Or are we happy with the theory of a universally free health service and close our eyes to a very different and socially regressive reality?
MLP leadership election has
deservedly occupied much of the news space over the last two months. Hopefully
this chapter will be closed before the coming weekend. I have already expressed my view that George Abela offers Labour the best prospects for success irrespective of the PN government’s performance. Any other candidate would leave Labour’s future hostage to fortune, as his or her success at the next election would need substantial assistance from the government through sub-standard performance in the course of this legislature. Labour must aim to win by merit. Winning by default is a volatile concept too risky to rely on, as the result of the March 2008 election has shown.
The only thing I would add today is that I agree with the MLP election commission’s decision prohibiting the leadership candidates from live direct participation in Xarabank. I have always had the view that Xarabank’s format produces more entertainment than information and the leadership election is no circus. Personally, I have participated very frequently in Bondi’s discussion programmes but always refused Xarabank’s invitations, as the atmosphere there is not conducive to meaningful discussion.
The election commission should have however put together a programme where an independent moderator puts the same questions to all contenders with strict time limits for their answer. And the medium for such a programme should have been One TV. What Xarabank then decides to do on the subject without the direct participation of the contestants in the studio is no matter for the electoral commission to interfere with.
Life goes on and the honeymoon period for the new Gonzi administration is now over. Reality is hitting home. The rose-tinted view of the world, which was so predominant in the election campaign, is gradually being replaced by a more pragmatic but darker view of the challenges that await us.
Social Policy Minister John Dalli described the hospital waiting lists this week as “scandalous”, saying it was unheard of that one had to wait up to five years for certain operations. Unheard of? I do not think these waiting lists mushroomed in the last three months. They were there and Labour’s ineffective campaign made no issue to show that the supposedly free health service is in fact scandalous.
However, I was under the impression that the long waiting list and sub-standard service were restricted to certain types of surgery, like hip replacement, where waiting was not a matter of life or death though still very relevant for the quality of the patient’s life.
I was wrong. The shabby service at Mater Dei is now spilling all over the place. Take what this blogger wrote last Thursday (29 May) in a publicly accessible blog: “A few days before Easter my wife drove me to Mater Dei Emergency as I was suffering from a colic attack. We got there at 5pm; after six hours of waiting we were told we had to wait for approx three more hours to be seen to. Everyone could see I was in absolute pain could not even talk with pain. At last my family took me to a private hospital where I was operated on. It cost me over 1000 euros. Well Mr Dalli who is going to refund me the cost of the operation? There were over eight security officers doing nothing, the customer care girl kept disappearing and there was no one around to check the real emergency cases. WHAT A SHAME...”
What’s the point of having a free service if you cannot get it when you really need it? This is not an isolated case. Similar letters of complaint are appearing in the press with increased frequency. Hospitals are not merely beautiful buildings and state of the art equipment. Above all they should be systems and service; efficient, effective and timely service.
This leads me to another point that needs to be remembered. Let’s stop saying that the government is delivering a free health service. It is certainly not free as the taxpayer is paying for every cent spent. And increasingly it is not a health service, as the experience of the above blogger is forcing more and more people to take out private health insurance even though they are supposedly entitled to free health service courtesy of the taxpayer.
In reality many people are paying twice for health services. We are paying as taxpayers to fund the running expenses of our hospitals and health centres. And we are paying our private health insurance schemes because we do not believe that the “free” health service will meet our expectations of effectiveness and timeliness when we need them.
It is time for our politicians to come off their high horse of false social morality and be totally frank and honest with the electorate on whether the taxpayer (not the government) can really afford to provide free and efficient health service to all who need it, irrespective of social standing. If it remains free and scandalous then basically it is not free at all. It is doubly expensive, as this blogger has found to his cost.
I am fed up of promises of free this and free that, without making it clear that nothing is really free and that lack of resources mean that those who have no resources have to wait a scandalous number of years to get access to such free service, while those who can afford it are taking out private insurance as they doubt the reliability of the supposedly free service.
Is this situation socially acceptable? Or are we happy with the theory of a universally free health service and close our eyes to a very different and socially regressive reality?
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