The news that the Minister of Health refused to accept the advice of the National Commission for Health Reforms to widen the base for free medicines to patients suffering from various mental illnesses made me reflect on the government’s reluctance to assume greater social responsibility.
The Minister was reported as saying that the National Commission was just an advisory body, and that consequently he was not bound by law to adopt its recommendations. This line of arguing has been going on for a number of years. Whenever the government sees a voting potential in a suggestion, it adopts it and makes its own. But when the voting element is scarce, then government rejects suggestions on the pretext that government does not owe an explanation to “advisory” bodies.
Then the question arises: why are these bodies appointed in the first place? There is a multitude of “advisory” committees or commissions which do nothing except serve a good pretext for their members to receive a small remuneration to supplement their meagre pension. Some of them hardly ever meet and in so doing they do not attract the Minister’s criticism. But the National Commission for Health Reforms thought otherwise. They pleaded with the Minister of Health to grant free medicine to long-term mental health patients and suggested the curtailment of abuse by other patients who were blatantly and undeservedly exploiting the system. The only patients entitled to free medicines are those suffering from schizophrenia. Consultants expressed their exasperation that other mentally-ill patients who were in need of medication could not get it because they could not afford it. They had to widen the definition of “schizophrenic” to include those patients who suffer from some other mental disorder, but they would have otherwise be omitted from entitlement to free medicine. According to the same report the Minister was blatant and criticised this practice. From the administrative point of view it is only a question of euros and cents. But from a wider social perspective, these patients are not different from those suffering from asthma, from hypertension or from diabetes.
Recently a person suffering from chronic depression told me how he felt helpless when his condition takes over. His mental powers disappear and he spends long hours in bed contemplating his inability to cope with life. For a whole week he abstained from work only to be discharged when he returned. Prescribed medicine is his only salvation.

I also had the occasion to meet an inmate at St Vincent de Paule. He told me that he had wished to spend the rest of his life in the retirement home in Cospicua, the town where he resided for 70 years. But he was informed that unless he went to St Vincent de Paule, he would not get free medicine.
I fully understand that the State is not a mammoth Father Christmas and there have to be certain limits to state assistance. But unfortunately, bureaucracy and the crazy ways in which it behaves seem to shadow the good intentions of social schemes and benefits.

We have been told on many occasions that the government wanted to eradicate abuses in social benefits and in free medicines. Words were numerous but no action followed. Thousands of unemployed persons receive unmerited handouts from the State, misappropriating the taxes paid by more industrious members of society. Recently, hundreds of people unnecessarily flocked to Mater Dei to receive services they didn’t need incurring the State an avoidable expense.
While the government is allowing abuse in these cases, it is limiting the grant of free medicines thereby hitting people who really deserve them.
It is a clear case of pardoning a robber and jailing the law abiding citizen.

This brings me to the case of the police recruit who was dismissed from the police force because she could not do the physical exercises after getting pregnant. I do not question the integrity or ability of the Police Commissioner, but I think this time round the police authorities got it wrong. They penalised a woman for getting pregnant, forgetting that the spirit of the law regarding employment which eliminates any form of discrimination. However the law has to be revised because as it stands, public officers have fewer rights than those employed in the private sector. A new law regulating comprehensively the rights and duties of public officers has long been overdue. Police officers and members of the Armed Forces of Malta should be given certain rights, including the right to belong to a trade union, something which in certain legal and disciplined forces’ quarters sounds anathema.
I do not know the lady in question but I sympathise with her. The official argument that she cannot perform her recruitment programme is an unnecessary detail. She could have honoured her obligation in an appropriate time after delivering her baby. The other argument that she could re-apply and compete with others when fresh applications are issued, shows lack of sensibility. It smells of an antiquated piece of reasoning where humane and social rights were not yet on the political agenda. This line of arguing is unbelievable in the 21st century and three years after we joined the European Union. I always give the benefit of the doubt, and mortals commit mistakes. It would be appropriate and welcome were the police authorities to revisit their decision and treat mothers-to-be with a little more respect.
It would be a demonstration that the social side of the coin is still alive, though not very much kicking.