Marlene Mizzi | Sunday, 05 April 2009

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Give us this day our daily health

There’s a prayer I say each day. I don’t think it’s different from what thousands of Maltese pray for each day: God, please keep my loved ones and me healthy.
It’s not just that I don’t want to fall ill. It’s not only that I don’t want to be struck down by breast cancer, or any other killer disease. I don’t, but these may be things I can’t change. I hope, if anything like that had to happen, I would have the serenity to accept it.
But falling ill may not be a total disaster. It may be something which, given proper and professional medical help, will see me cured. In that case I don’t want to turn into a nasty statistic – like the 6,000 people queuing up at Mater Dei waiting to have a far more minor condition cured, like cataracts. Some patients must now wait four years. Hard-pressed surgeons are today still operating on patients who should have been operated in 2003. More patients should have meant government employing more staff. It didn’t happen.
The healthcare service our government provides is dodgier than that. Admittedly, people are bound to talk more about the hospital’s failures than its many sterling successes, but the inadequacy that dogs Mater Dei – inaugurated before the elections with the pomp normally accorded to a shopping mall – are not limited to it being inadequately manned. It is also far too small, despite having cost far too much and taken 17 years to build. The new hospital was a ‘gift to the people’ we were told. A gift for which we have paid for dearly, but which remains unavailable to us when we need it most. No wonder people are angry.
Not being given the health services we deserve is an issue that frustrates us all. A proper, efficient State health service is a God-given right. It is a right which we are being denied. In the face of dire situations like those that afflict Mater Dei one cannot give time to time – which is what the government seems to be doing.
As citizens of a modern state and a member country of the EU we deserve much better. We certainly do not deserve to be taken for rides – as was the case when Prime Minister Gonzi promised us a nationwide breast-screening programme. That’s almost two years ago now.
Even if the government is failing miserably to provide us with adequate healthcare services, the EU places huge emphasis on our wellbeing. It also provides remedies for when governments fail to come up with solutions that satisfy the ordinary citizen.
One particular directive the EU Commission wants to finalise soon concerns cross border healthcare. Basically, the EU wants people unable to get proper healthcare in their own country to be able to travel elsewhere, with the government footing the bill. A legal instrument has already been prepared by the Commission: it will help patients get the healthcare they need and help member states ensure the accessibility, the quality and financial sustainability of their own health care systems.
These are bold, brave ideas. These are the initiatives I want all of us Maltese, as EU citizens, to enjoy. This is what being citizens of the EU should be all about: better lifestyles, better state services. These are the initiatives I wish to help introduce if elected to the European parliament. I don’t want anyone to be a sad statistic, part of an endless queue waiting outside Mater Dei for years before one gets the surgical intervention one cannot wait for. This is the difference I want to make in Brussels. Government, ill advised and inefficient as it is, was quite happy to spend Lm350 million TO build a spanking, brand new hospital; but it then leaves me waiting for years if I need surgery.
I on the other hand want to pressurise our government into accepting initiatives being piloted by the EU Commission – whatever it might cost. I want our people to enjoy the right of free cross border healthcare.
More so in the case of healthcare, “People First” is a commitment I will breathe life into, if elected to the European parliament. You can count on me.

marlene@mizzimarlene.com

Marlene Mizzi is a Labour candidate for the European Parliament elections

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