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MT 11 May 2017

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maltatoday, THURSDAY, 11 MAY 2017 7 News PN government will shut down IVF Department, Muscat warns TIM DIACONO PRIME Minister and Labour leader Joseph Muscat warned that a future PN government risks halting scientific progress in Malta and claimed that the party is still ideologically against IVF treatment. Addressing a political activity in Ik- lin, Muscat recounted how the Labour administration had inherited an IVF laboratory at Mater Dei that was in a disastrous state. "Two medical consultants who are still close to the Nationalist Party had done everything possible for the IVF Department not to be used," he said. "The Department was so misused that we had to throw away all the equip- ment and tools and spend hundreds of thousands of euro to replace them. If the PN returns to government, it will do everything possible to shut down the IVF Department for good." He warned that the Nationalist Par- ty is still ideologically against some aspects of scientific progress and claimed that scientific progress in Malta is at a crossroads. "The Nationalist Party subscribes to a fundamentalist ideology which states that people should not have ba- bies born through IVF, the same ide- ology which made them against the morning-after pill," he said. "We are at a crossroads. We can either continue down the path of scientific progress with ethical debates or we can choose a coalition of confusion, a substantial part of which still believes that scien- tific progress should be halted." Amputee addresses the crowd Muscat's speech was preceded by a brief speech by Pauline Cassar de Lor- enzo, a meningitis sufferer whose ill- ness cost her both her legs. She praised the Labour government for introducing a disability pension for amputees, arguing that the previous administration wasn't sympathetic to her cause. It was also addressed by three medi- cal professionals – cardiologist Rob- ert Xuereb, gynaecologist Mark Sant and medical consultant Prof. Stephen Montfort. Montfort hailed Labour's plan to build a new mother and child hospital and a psychiatric hospital as one that will free up several beds at Mater Dei and therefore end the problem of pa- tients beings treated in corridors once and for all. Sant hailed the IVF law and called for it to be improved further. To boos from the crowd, he said he had started discussions on the matter with Partit Demokratiku leader Marlene Farru- gia and that shadow health minister Claudette Buttigieg had cancelled a planned appointment and never re- scheduled. On his part, Xuereb hailed Labour's plans to add more medication for heart problems to the governments' formulary list. Cardiologist Robert Xuereb PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS MANGION

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