Let’s listen to the doctors and cut our losses already

The government and its large swathes of blinkered devotees may pay little heed to investigations carried out by the free press and the crying foul of the parliamentary opposition, and they may ignore the writing that has been on the wall so clearly for so long when it comes to the great hospitals heist.

They may ignore us and well-meaning politicians but when it comes to the handson, brass tacks of the matter, one would have to be mighty foolish indeed to ignore what the country’s actual doctors are saying.

Doctors, you see, are governed by the ethical standards of the Hippocratic Oath – they are beholden, in their professional lives, to that and not to any particular party.

And that is why when the country’s doctors, under the auspices of the Medical

Association of Malta, speak up, they really ought to be listened to. These are, after all, the frontline people, they are the experts in medicine and against that absolutely no one can argue.

When one is diagnosed with a serious illness, one may seek a second opinion from another doctor, but no one, unless they have a death wish, would completely ignore that advice.

And that is why when the country’s doctors band together to demand the government ‘cuts its losses’ on a privatisation deal that has clearly gone bad, one should listen.

When doctors say that millions are being squandered on this deal and that such funds should be better spent on equipment and services, one should listen.

Doctors have diagnosed the problem with the hospitals that have been privatised through two strange deals, and the recommended prognosis is that we stop draining the public coffers because this particular public-private-partnership has been an abject failure.

According to them, every year we are pumping tens of millions of euros into the operation of the three state hospitals being privately run by the American company Steward Healthcare – the company that took over in the wake of the Vitals Global Healthcare debacle, which has been steeped in so many corruption allegations that the mind boggles, but let us not digress.

This money is simply going down the drain, rather than towards the better-quality healthcare doctors feel they would be able to deliver to the Maltese public. But not only that... project commitments are not being met either , with the promised state-of-the-art, newly refurbished St Luke’s, Karen Grech and Gozo General hospitals a long way off from that lofty goal.

The doctors very reasonably ask where all the money has gone. They are demanding that the government ‘stop the bleeding’ that is the €1.5 billion deal.

But it seems that no one in government or any staunch follower of this particular governing party has any problem whatsoever with the less than satisfactory way the privatised hospitals are being run – or perhaps not being run – or with the massive haemorrhaging the whole deal is causing the state coffers.

At least the leader of the Opposition is fighting in court to have the deals rescinded, as are sections of the press. But that is not enough; the people need to demand what is rightfully theirs, and not have their hard-earned taxes flushed down the drain to wind up somewhere in the British Virgin Islands or an American back account. This is Maltese money that is being wasted, and it needs to stop.

We understand that this deal was struck by a former health minister and that the incumbent ‘inherited’ this disastrous situation. But what will it take to set matters straight and return to the people what is theirs?

The buck cannot keep being passed ad infinitum, it has to stop somewhere, and someone down the line needs to take the necessary action.