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6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MARCH 2022 OPINION 2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 7 JULY 2024 In the health sector, seeing is believing, now Editorial PLANS for a new outpatient block at Mater Dei Hospital were approved by the Planning Authority in 2021 but the project never took off the ground. Now, the plans have been scrapped indefinitely. Similarly, in 2016, government had announced its intention to build a 300-bed mother and child hospital. Nothing ever came of those plans and the area originally identified for this new hospital wing is now being considered for an expansion of the Emergency Department. Another grand plan to build a new mental health hospital near Mater Dei Hospital to replace the an- cient facility at Mount Carmel has also fizzled away and instead scaled down to a 100-bed facility for acute care. The overall impact of these three grand projects would have been to create new modern spaces, while freeing up areas in the hospital proper to in- crease the number of beds there. The only significant capital investment in health infrastructure that will ease the pressure on Mater Dei during the Labour government's tenure so far has been the Censu Moran regional medical hub in Paola and the completion of the Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology facility, work on which had been started by the previous Nationalist administration. The failure to improve the health infrastructure is now a matter of serious concern. Mater Dei Hospi- tal was already suffering from a shortage of beds in 2013 before the population boom started. Had the plans materialised as promised, the gen- eral hospital would have experienced a growth in bed space in line with the increasing demands on healthcare emanating from a growing population. Instead, the Labour government chose to pin its hopes on the public-private partnership deal that saw an obscure company take over the running of three facilities – Gozo General, St Luke's and Karin Grech. The Vitals deal foresaw the construction of a new general hospital in Gozo, the refurbishment of St Luke's and its use as a medical tourism hub and upgrading of Karin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital. The private company would have also made hun- dreds of beds available for the public health service. This deal not only floundered with nothing to show for it but was mired in corruption and sleaze at every turn as confirmed by the Auditor General, a magisterial inquiry and several journalistic inves- tigations. The people behind the Vitals-Steward deal are now facing serious criminal charges, while the promised benefits of the PPP never materialised. Indeed, not only did government fork out €400 million to the private companies over a 10-year span with nothing to show for it, but it also lost the opportunity of carrying out its own investment in critical health infrastructure. Now, the country's health system is buckling as a result of this lack of investment and the ones to pay the price are patients and medical profession- als who must work under significant pressure over long periods. Waiting times at the Emergency Department have shot up with patients reporting stays of 12 hours or more. The situation is only made worse when the country experiences spikes of influenza and COV- ID, as is the current situation. Lengthy waiting times are also being experienced at health centres, which for many people are the first point of contact when a medical emergency crops up. But waiting times are not confined to emergen- cy situations. Appointments for MRIs and surgical interventions are more often than not made for months down the line, indirectly forcing people to seek medical treatment in private facilities – that is if they can afford it. Temporary treatment areas at Mater Dei Hospi- tal, which were supposedly reserved for major in- cidents have become permanent, leaving patients in undignified environments. And the staff canteen and library have had to be turned into makeshift wards. Unfortunately, during the years of plenty the gov- ernment was more interested in defending and en- abling the survival of a corrupt deal than putting into action a feasible plan to build new healthcare facilities and expand existing ones to keep up with the pace of a booming population. Now, in a more austere environment the govern- ment is evidently struggling to find the necessary funds. Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela has announced his plans, to expand the number of cubicles at the Emergency Department by building a new exten- sion and the removal of administrative offices from Mater Dei to make space for more beds. He has also unveiled plans for outpatient and day care servic- es to be offered from St Luke's Hospital and Karin Grech thus freeing up more space. In Gozo, he unveiled plans for a new hospital with mock-up visuals of how this facility will look. No planning applications have been filed yet. Abela may have all the good intentions of this world but like the rest of the population we have grown cynical of plans, visuals, ideas, intentions and promises. We will believe him when the works on each of these projects start and conclude. Quote of the Week "Around €6,500,000 were spent to fabricate a story with a single malign purpose: To politically eliminate me. This is how much filthy money was paid to try to get Chris Fearne out of the way." Former deputy prime minister Chris Fearne reacting to media revelations that Steward Health Care funded a smear campaign against him. MaltaToday 10 years ago 6 July 2014 Dalli: Busuttil and Kessler 'in bed together' FOLLOWING a turbulent week in which the Dalligate affair resurfaced, the main protagonist of the two-year saga, former EU Commissioner John Dalli, has made various charges against the Nationalist Party, Giovanni Kessler and PN leader, Simon Busuttil. The combative Dalli has accused his former party, the PN, and Kessler, direc- tor general of the EU's anti-fraud office OLAF, of being in cahoots, claiming that outgoing European Commission presi- dent José Manuel Barroso, and the previous administration were out to get him. "Simon Busuttil holds up Kessler as a demi- god that can do no wrong. This position solidifies the suspicion that they are in bed together on this," Dalli told MaltaToday. He even opened a front on other newspa- pers and what his former party, which he dubbed 'GonziPN in its new and old semblance'. "Together with its media, Times of Malta, Malta Independent and Where's Everybody, [they] all have been coordinated to transmit Kessler's mes- sage and to demean me in any way they could." Dalli accused Busuttil of "springing to Kes- sler's defence at every opportunity", and said that claims by Silvio Zammit (a former Dalli canvasser) that a lawyer close to the former PN administration offered him a presidential pardon in exchange for an "untrue" testimony "should not be taken lightly and should be in- vestigated in depth." "This is another unambiguous piece of ev- idence of the collusion between Barroso and GonziPN in this story." Silvio Zammit has declined to identify the alleged person who suggested a pardon in re- turn for him to testify against Dalli.