Weeks ago, I could still look into her smiling eyes. Then the political parties pledged that they would keep health free forever, just like two lovers who promise that they will love each other forever. There is no such thing as forever. Forever does not configure in this world or any other world.
A tug of war resulted over how serious both political leaders were about their hand-on-heart commitment that health will remain free in Malta and Gozo for the rest of our lives.
It was taken for granted that health was free, even though the arithmetic does not add up, and it is simply not true that all things are free. It is of course the biggest joke of the decade. In case you had not noticed, medication is free only for those willing to wait in endless queues and possibly suffering more in the process and quite possibly dying prematurely as a result.
If anyone talks of free health, rewind back to all the memories and experiences of the hundreds if not of thousands of Maltese who have had to experience health and service at Malta’s most expensive building. They will tell stories of what is free and of what is not. Of the consultants who suggest that they visit them in their private clinics and of the surgeons who promote private operations in their private clinics and not in State hospitals.
Everyone is scared to mention names. I could promise readers that, given the evidence, I will name and shame those who willingly encourage their clients to pay out of their pockets for services that could be offered for free at the State hospital: the same hospital which Gonzi reminds us is so state-of-the-art that we are the envy of everyone from Alaska to Tasmania.
There is this belief that doctors and consultants are untouchables. They are not, and please start realising that this is 2008, not 1708. If doctors retort that they have studied and worked cruel hours and as such should be treated with silk gloves, reply that even we have studied and worked gruelling hours, too.
Let me be very clear this is not on an indictment on the paramedics, the nurses or the doctors. The vast majority are dedicated and honest, although some are not.
Our present state of health is a denunciation of the years the health service was administered by Louis Deguara, the former Nationalist minister under the premiership of Fenech Adami and then Gonzi. The two premiers who expect us to pat them on the back for achievements which really and truly can hardly be attributed to them.
Deguara was the man who looked on as the whole understaffed service collapsed under the strain, and then in an attempt to erase what was fundamentally a problem with the workings of the system, they used all their energies to patch up the body when it was the soul that needed seeing to most.
Instead of St Luke’s we now have Mater Dei. But one cannot only blame Deguara and his lethargic ways, one really has to point a finger at the people who retained him year after year – Eddie, Lawrence and of course Joe Saliba – when they knew that he was not up to the job.
Only last week, there was a little detail which seems to have been missed by many readers who followed the Nicholas Azzopardi saga. On the day the man who was in police custody died, Azzopardi’s family were obliged to buy injections against a possible thrombosis. Then they were expected to pass them on to the nursing staff to administer. That day, he died.
God only knows whether he was given the injections; but then, God is strangely always in the wrong place and at the wrong time.
There are endless lists of drugs which are not free but can save lives; and yet Gonzi and Sant only weeks ago argued that we should keep our health free, when life still flittered in her eyes they were promising that they would not dismantle that which in reality was not even in place.
The myth about free health must be taken to task and I hope that Dalli will have the spine to take it on in his inimitable style. Believing that there is free health is a myth that should be done away with. There is a need to prioritise on free health. And if Gonzi cannot come to terms with this reality then someone better start telling him the truth. The other day I heard Simon Busuttil talk of Gonzi, it was like Maria Goretti talking of her love for pecorino. Busuttil could use his blind adoration for Gonzi to spell out that there is no such thing as a freebie.
If he is concerned that his idol may be painted as a hypocrite, I would suggest he need not worry: no one really believes politicians to be otherwise.
The other day, a friend talked of his wife and her excruciating pain from a ‘growth’ that needed to be removed, they had to wait for six hours at the emergency department, from 11pm to four in the morning.
Her specialist had put her down on the waiting list for an operation in four months’ time and had hinted that she solve the queue problem by having the operation at a private hospital. The private operation would have been equivalent to their joint incomes of four months. They both decided that they could not wait, even though money is not something that falls from the skies with most families.
In the end they opted for the private hospital because when it comes to health, we lesser mortals who of course did not study late hours and never worked hard in our lives, do not really care if someone makes a killing from cutting tissue and rupturing blood vessels.
As we listen to these silly political debates on our state of the art healthcare system, I can only say that the silent majority do not share any of the frivolous viewpoints of our politicians.
They are screaming out to politicians to keep their soiled fingers off the health debate and to pass over reform in health to individuals who can manage problems, not politicise them.
The whole medical management, hospital service and the people that work within in it are beyond reproach and are so seemingly perfect and virginal that really and truly, God has decided to model Paradise on the workings of the Maltese free health service.
But I cannot end this tribute to Malta’s free health service without mentioning the ridiculous army of security and guards at Mater Dei: a regiment working for government and the usual private security firm renowned for making us love wardens not hate them.
It is a shame. Try and walk around Mater Dei and you really get the feeling that you are visiting Fort Knox. There are more guards than nurses, more security officers than doctors, more CCTVs than happy faces.
And yet, we still have not heard the last of Premier Lawrence Gonzi congratulating himself on a job well done at Mater Dei - which by the way only cost around €600 million.
When I had just started to like Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici and sort of forget about the silly things he said when he was selected by Mintoff to be prime minister, KMB as we knew him meets up with hunters’ chief Lino Farrugia.
They both agree that Malta should have vetoed the entry of Bulgaria and Romania until the EU granted Malta the possibility of shooting turtle dove in Spring.
But then perhaps KMB’s greatest contribution to science and politics in general was his statement that Europe has no right to protect its birds because these birds are not European but African. He says that they come from Africa and are therefore African.
Well, just for the record. KMB should have been told that in Autumn, European birds migrate south to Africa for warmer climes and in Spring return to Europe from Africa to breed. They are of course European birds, even though it is not really important what geographical area they come from.
He has of course showed us how limited his knowledge is, which is why I always wonder how Dom Mintoff and the Labour party could have appointed this man to lead them.
And since we are on the subject of the Labour party, has anyone told George Abela of the great resentment towards his candidature from the great majority of militant Labourites? Many are promising to return their membership if he is elected.
Some object to him more than they oppose Gonzi. Can you really blame them?
If I were Abela I would just start a new party and turn a fresh new leaf without Jason Micallef, without Manwel Cuschieri and without all the debt, the hang-ups and the angst.
What about it, dear George?
