Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/286290
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 30 MARCH 2014 4 News PAGE 1 Muscat sounded and ap- peared unfazed yesterday (going by his tweets, only) displaying a sense of lightness about the whole affair. His spokesperson Kurt Farrugia tweeted a shot of the fantastic weather and the Girgenti views, members of their entourage kindly provided the press waiting patiently outside with bever- ages and some biscuits. Just another day of prime-ministering. The Nationalist Party machine was eerily silent too, except for a state- ment it issued soon after Farrugia's resignation (see page 3), saying that it had exposed Muscat's "deceit". "Muscat has sued and disposed of Farrugia and Mercieca… he created every imaginable obstacle to hinder Farrugia," the PN said, accusing Muscat of concealing Mercieca's request to be left out of the Cabinet following the imminent reshuffle. "A prime minister who conceals the resignation of a member of Cabinet from the people is a prime minister who put his own political interest above the people's inter- ests… These events fly in the face of Muscat's promise to have the best Cabinet in history." Mercieca had already made his intention clear that he wanted to return to his practice as an eye sur- geon, and one who is much sought after. But in the process, he also made the Prime Minister foolishly concede a 'limited waiver' on the Code of Ethics for ministers so that he could carry out his practice in the weekends. It opened up Muscat to allegations of improper governance, ready to sacrifice the ethics code he had used to beat up former finance minister Tonio Fenech with during the latter's infamous private jet trip to watch Arsenal play. A year into his tenure as health minister, Farrugia's stewardship of the health ministry underwent con- siderable criticism, with the han- dling of Mater Dei and the nurses' union proving to be his Achilles heel – especially after refusing to take ownership for a report penned by consultant John Dalli and the aes- thetically unpleasant and unsettling marquee set up outside the Mater Dei emergency department to ex- tend the waiting room. Farrugia blamed shortcomings on the previous PN administration. He even disassociated the health ministry from Dalli's report – even though Joseph Muscat had said that Dalli's appointment was the initial idea of Godfrey Farrugia himself. Farrugia's handling of Mater Dei was again put into question when in January 2014, the health ministry set up a tent and a marquee for an out- door reception centre at Mater Dei Hospital – only for the Prime Minis- ter to order the removal of the tent. The tent, which was set up while the day care unit's reception area was being filled with beds prompted widespread condemnation by nurs- es, hospital workers and unions. His first weeks as health minister were also mired in controversy, not least due to Muscat's reported deci- sion to allow him to have his own fiancé Marlene Farrugia, a Labour MP, as an unpaid ministerial aide. After 12 months, a Cabinet reshuffle Claudio Grech Shadow health minister Despite being billed as normal, this reshuffle is anything but. To have the resignation of a key minister an- nounced on Facebook rather than through an official government state- ment is not normal, especially when it had been submitted hours earlier. Even more abnormal is the fact that the resignation of a parliamentary secretary was concealed for weeks without it being made public. Firstly, the health minister was de- prived of the responsibility for ter- tiary care, which is fundamental in addressing the sector's key challeng- es, the demographic trends and the country's ageing population. Secondly, government faced the high expectations it created through its populist promises prior to the election. It's evident that not only government had no roadmap, but it did not have a clue how it should ad- dress the real challenges the country is facing in the sector. Promising miracles in a matter of a few weeks in addressing the waiting lists, out of stock medicines and pa- tients in corridors, quickly turned in- to a biting reality which showed that the promises not only were unfeasible but hard to implement. Sporadic and incoherent measures became the or- der of the day. The biggest source of uncertainty came in the failure to rebuff con- stant rumours that Farrugia would be removed, which in turn eroded the minister's credibility and authority. After all, politicians are humans not robots. As I have been repeating for months, the health sector must be kept above partisan politics. It's ironic that the parliamentary committee on health's first meeting was held on Wednesday, in which the foundations of consensus were laid. Hopefully, the changes we'll witness in the next few hours do not put to waste the efforts made in the last few months. Farrugia resignation: what they said The big winner: Karmenu Vella goes to Brussels