The new year’s first thorns
Barely had the New Year’s bells stopped pealing, leftovers been disposed of, and tinsel and lights taken down than the year’s first thorns started to appear. In truth, they were always there but had gone into hibernation over the festive period. One of those thorns – and in no particular order – is that of Air Malta. The end of the year came and went and still no agreement has been reached regarding the pilots’ collective agreement. The deadline was the end of the year. Without this agreement, agreements with other sectors are useless. From what has appeared in the media, it would seem that a last-minute offer was made, only to be retracted by the same government because of concerns it violated EU rules on state aid.
It is true that pilots earn a very high salary – by Maltese standards, anyway – but they can receive even higher pay packages if they joined different airlines. Experienced pilots are in very high demand, after all.
The second thorn regards recent developments in the running of Malta’s public hospitals (bar Mater Dei).
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Practically on the eve of Christmas, when people were more concerned with Christmas shopping and preparations, we learnt that VGH, the company with no hospital experience entrusted by this government with the running of Gozo General Hospital, St Luke’s Hospital and Karen Grech Hospital, as well as the new Barts facility in Gozo, had sold its agreement to an American company that does have hospital experience, but not outside the US. It is not known for what sum of money this transaction was made – that is, what profit VGH made on the deal. Nor is it known whether any commissions were paid at any stage. After all, when the government finally gave in to pleas and published the VGH contracts, there were so many redactions that the whole exercise became quite pointless.
The fact is, however, that beyond sporadic promotion and recruitment drives, the VGH experience has not produced any lasting effects. Gozo General Hospital is no better off now than it was before VGH’s involvement, and no substantial increase in medical equipment has been registered. It would seem that the substantial sum the government passed on to VGH went mostly wages and salaries.
Nor are things clearer with the new American outfit. They seem to be big, but then American healthcare – rather than taking the socially-minded approach typical to Continental Europe – is notoriously profit-driven. In America, woe betide those who do not have health insurance – which was the whole point behind Obama’s healthcare reform, which is now being dismantled by his successor.
We need assurance that principles governing healthcare in Malta will be safeguarded, not dismantled. The Barts experiment in Gozo needs to prosper and move on from it’s current stage. Hospitals employees have been assured that their conditions will remain unchanged under the new management, but we – the people of Malta and Gozo – need much more than that. What we definitely do not need is an asset-stripping outfit intent on squeezing out every last drop of profit it can from the Maltese healthcare system.