At a Labour activity held in Xaghra square yesterday morning, the media was given a copy of a document penned by the Ministry of Health, which according to Labour Leader Alfred Sant, “talks about public health income generated from fees and taxes on health”.
Earlier this week, Sant revealed a Health Ministry report presented to the Cabinet Committee for Social Policy that seems to suggest a new structure of fees for public health in an aim to sustain Malta’s health services.
“The Cabinet has agreed in principle to this concept, but fees for Maltese citizens will not be introduced for the moment due to their political underpinnings,” the report said.
“Gonzi asked for an apology from my end. Fat chance,” Sant continued while his supporters fervently applauded. “I speak in Maltese and in Gozitan, and Gonzi lied: ergo, he’s a liar. He is the one who should apologise – for lying to the Maltese population. I have no idea how he can come out of this.”
At that point, Sant referred to a report that had been penned by the Health Ministry in 2005, citing : “The Maltese government has proposed the establishment of a national health fund to finance the public health sector. This fund could be a sub-fund of the Consolidated Fund, financed in part from social security health contributions. Other potential sources of income for the national health fund include hypothecated taxes,
government grants and miscellaneous fees.”
After driving the point home by quoting this paragraph again in Maltese, Sant added: “To add insult to injury, this is a proposal issued to the EU, not locally. Gonzi wants us to believe that the initial Health Ministry report published in 2004 was a one-time proposal, that it was immediately discarded. This report was published in April 2005,” he insisted.
Referring to the paragraph again, in particular to the point where it talks about “miscellaneous fees”, Sant asked: “Who will be paying for the miscellaneous fees? The elderly, who end up waiting in queues for health service endlessly? Those who are on waiting lists for knee replacements?”
A few hours after these questions were raised, the Department of Information released an urgent press release on behalf of the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), in an attempt to answer his questions.
“These are nothing but tariffs charged to either foreign patients or companies for services they make use of. Such payments have long formed part of the Government’s budget, including the period when Dr Sant was Prime Minister 10 years ago,” the statement said.
The OPM spokesperson also pointed out that Sant tried to give the impression that “this report was hidden in some sort of safe so nobody finds it… after it (the report) was presented to the EU Commission’s Social Protection Committee in April 2005, this report had been available for a long time on the website of the EU Commission.”
Later, referring to the en bloc resignation of MEPA’s Development Control Committee, Sant said: “A filthy case of illegal corruption came to the surface and the board resigned.”
“He (Gonzi) immediately appointed a board for the six remaining days, since there are 600 cases that need to be looked into,” he said, also insinuating that a large number of cases to be seen by the DCC board have been fast-tracked to be approved before election day.
While adding that the country needs to change and that Gozitans “can’t keep going to Giovanna (Debono) to pass on an application so as not to lose their chance of getting promoted”, he was sarcastic about signals given out by the PN about including new faces in the next prospective PN government.
“Who are the new people coming in? Is Gonzi maybe banking on anyone who is here with us today?” This was a clear reference to PN candidate Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, who was sitting with the press to be able to offer his retorts to a bombshell story that was about to be revealed on land he owns in Mistra Bay.
The story was revealed a few hours later, while Pullicino Orlando was not present. In his reaction Pullicino Orlando said : “Sant praised me this morning,” with reference to the same sarcastic comment.

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