Letters | Sunday, 07 February 2010

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Primary healthcare reform long overdue

The reform of the primary health system in Malta is long overdue. The casual popping in and out of various GPs to compare diagnoses is well known and does not promote good healthcare. There is not a structured and consistent way of keeping medical records because the system is fragmented between the private GPs, the polyclinics, public and private hospitals.
While it will be a culture change for the patients, the benefits will be very quickly seen and the healthy doctor patient relationship becomes the mainstay of the point of entry. Even if somebody has to be admitted to hospital in an emergency, there is always one point of contact for the hospital to refer to where all the medical records are kept.
The GP system as set up in the UK generally works very well. It should work even better in Malta if there is full co-operation from the medical profession. The lack of continuity in the system has always been a bugbear in Malta as all practitioners work for themselves with no identified system in place. Looking at the figures for 2007 of the number of practitioners per 100,000 people, Malta seems to be well ahead (388/100,000 GPs) of the pack (UK, 230; USA, 256; Italy, 370) so there should be no shortage of takers if the doctors are well rewarded to provide a good service.
I hope the proposed system will be further enhanced by looking at other countries to pick out the best practices, but even as is in its vague structure, should provide a good basis for a system to evolve of the next few years.

Francis Borg
Liverpool, UK

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