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I tried to think. What could be the worst memory from my infancy?
Despite suffering from serious amnesia, I guess it has to be the cod liver oil. That was a tough, oily, fishy-tasting concoction that cannot be loved by any living creature.
Runner-up would be the horror at the dentist and the anaesthesia to get my front teeth right, and finally, I think it has to be the bites from the flea-infested straw chairs at St Helen’s Basilica.
But really and truly, nothing matches the nausea children in a primary school in Naxxar must have felt when greeted one fine morning by TV cameras and journalists and our health minister, Louis Deguara.
It is no coincidence that Dr Deguara chose the Naxxar primary school. This is not the first time that he has parachuted into his own constituency. Talking to children about inoculation must be similar to talking to my 80-year-old aunt about the great joys of hip replacement.
Deguara must surely have said something completely incomprehensible to most of the young faces, but no worries as long as the TV cameras rolled on.
A few months ago, the same minister had the same inoculation trick. This time, he went for the real thing and offered his professional medical services to give free jabs at the Naxxar local council, and once again he had the press following close behind.
Louis Deguara is a lucky man. Not only does his wife, a doctor, serve as Naxxar’s mayor, but Fatima (as we all know her) will do anything to promote her husband who is standing once again for the next general election.
Now, it has to be said that Louis – I hope he doesn’t mind if I address him by his first name – has plenty of time on his hands. Deguara is basically without a job. The massive new hospital at Mater Dei is administered by junior minister Tonio Fenech, who thankfully has done what Louis Deguara failed to do in all his years as health minister.
So if you ask me, Deguara is one of the ministers who should have been asked to take a break. The financial disaster at Mater Dei before the latest deal with Skanska is something only a health minister can answer for.
But let us return for a minute to the Naxxar inoculation episode. Deguara’s inoculation saga was surprisingly covered by Labour television channel One TV. Typically for them, they did not see the story within the story.
Just imagine for a minute if Labour’s Michael Farrugia as a potential health minister held a press event in a primary school in Naxxar. NET and In-Nazzjon would be out and around with their bazookas and Kalashnikovs, with Louis Deguara as opposition spokesperson, calling on the commissioner for children to investigate.
In the West, pictures of children and or the use of children in the press are treated with, pun not intended, kid gloves. Louis Deguara was more interested in making some political mileage than extolling the very well known advantages of inoculation.
Am I taking the issue too far? I don’t think so. Only some time ago a parent at a government school was told that he could not take a picture of his daughter in the school play because of the Data Protection Act. Pictures of children cannot be circulated without the consent of the parents.
Did Louis or Fatima ask for the parents’ consent? It is of course absolutely ludicrous.
Yet, if this was a case of two weights and two measures, then hear this one.
As editor you get rebuked if you advertise a vacancy and fail to include the image of both a female and a male, even though it is a female secretary you want, and not a boy with a gruff voice!
As editor you get rapped on the knuckles by the gender equality police for using the word ‘policeman’ instead of ‘police officer’.
But if you get starry-eyed kids who cannot tell the difference between Louis Deguara and Sylvester Stallone screened on TV, that is okay.
Last Christmas, the Prime Minister himself posed with primary schoolchildren from Bormla. Bormla was obviously selected because it falls in Dr Gonzi’s constituency. We had nearly done away with seeing politicians cuddle babies or prudently hug fragile and far-from-fragrant 100-year-olds to present them with a useless gift.
But now, it is time that politicians leave the children alone, and return to the soap box campaign trail where charisma, elocution and vague promises serve to entice the potential voters, and not snapshots with the faces of bewildered and naïve children.
This week, Alfred Sant was invited to Lufthansa Technik.
Labour has been very careful not to give the impression that it is against “investment” projects.
Before talking to the press he was seen donning huge black sunglasses. When he talked to the press he was careful to remove his unfriendly sunglasses. When he put them back on, this obviously caught the attention of the ‘friendly’ press who were very kind to reproduce Sant in this ‘men in black outfit’.
But then the real story is that Alfred Sant, who by the way is human, has just carried out an eye operation. And when you get operated in your eyes, normally eye surgeons suggest you take some precautions.
Any further comment I guess is superfluous.
It is about time the Labour party admits to one thing about the Marsascala recycling plant – that if it is elected to government it has no plans to remove the plant.
I do not believe that it is a question of choice. The Labour party knows that closing such a plant would mean throwing away millions of liri. Having said this, it does stop the public and lobby groups from accusing the Nationalist party of having made a public relations disaster in trying to sell this recycling plant to the people. And it is not entirely surprising to understand Josie Muscat’s criticism of MEPA’s shameful rubber-stamping episode when it came to the recycling plant.
One wonderful way of avoiding a public relations disaster is to say absolutely nothing. And this is exactly what has been happening in the health and safety segment. The first thing that has to be said is that the Occupational Health and Safety Authority has been a veritable disaster.
We do not need to be told that most contractors consider safety to be of little importance. But when it comes to the government-appointed body of the OHSA, one would have at least expected some commitment to implementing safety across the board.
Employment Minister Louis Galea has of course not felt the need to respond to the crisis. He knows that saying nothing is the best policy, since saying something will drag him into a spiral of controversy.
The fact is that in the last three years we have had two chairmen with clearly unadulterated political allegiances: one a former Nationalist candidate, the other a canvasser to Louis Galea himself.
The chairman of the authority should be done away with and instead a chief executive with human and financial resources appointed. More interestingly, James Debono’s front-page story reveals the apparent reluctance of Cabinet to bring forward building construction regulations addressing health and safety.
The US forces have started to build a wall between the Shia and Shiite communities in a section of Baghdad. The wall has led to families being separated and raised more questions about the US presence and has definitely vindicated the extremists.
The US continues to confirm what bad judgement it is capable of and its failure to look towards the future.
Thank you for all the encouraging comments and emails about last Wednesday’s MaltaToday edition. Good news that so many new readers have decided to opt for MaltaToday on Wednesday. And let us face it, with all the investigative stories piling up for the Wednesday edition, I would suggest you book your copy in advance.
Apologies for a slightly shorter version of my column. The flu has finally got to me, and I am sure that it has something to do with missing out on Deguara’s magic inoculation...
sbalzan@mediatoday.com.mt |
