Saviour Balzan on Sunday - 01/09/2002

Medical Limbo Rock

Tourists are getting a bad deal we have been told. So what else is new? The stunning revelation comes from none other that Prof. Louis Buhagiar, Labour MP and medical Consultant

He was guest speaker at Manwel Cuschieri's radio talkshow the one with Malta's biggest audience. They talked and talked.

Profs Louis Buhagiar who has been featured in this newspaper for overcharging and for attracting unnecessary attention from foreign insurance agencies. We commented on the judgement of the Small Claims Tribunal following a foreign patient's refusal to pay.

Profs Buhagiar has taken this newspaper, the undersigned and a journalist to court over our factual reportage.

His lawyer in the suit for libel damages is José Herrera another Labour MP who has himself requested parliament to condemn an editorial written by MaltaToday regarding some comments Herrera made in the press.

Back to Malta’s top radio programme. Tourists are being fleeced.

Yet Manwel Cuschieri chose not to ask Prof. Louis Buhagiar about the very serious reports (not allegations) about his overcharging.

Manwel Cuschieri has made it his mission to shoot down journalists for acting as mercenaries and stooges for the Nationalist government. Yet he finds no difficulty in serving as a first class apologist for the Labour Party presenting only one side of the story and leaving out the heart of the matter.

In his book crticising one side means that the other is completely safe. Odd version of journalism.

He probably imagines that if we discovered a Nationalist MP, who blatantly overcharged his clients we would cover up for him. Lambasting Buhagiar is our job. Lambasting anyone of any colour in such a situation is our job. It should also be Cuschieri's.

In his programme we were forced to listen to Louis Buhagiar's sanctimonious account about what a bad deal tourists are getting when they arrive in Malta.

C'mon. Limbo rock on the radio. How low can you go?

Insurance agencies in the UK have threatened to increase their premiums for health insurance to Malta because of the fees meted out by some medical professionals including Profs Buhagiar himself. Bad deal? Is he kidding? The Labour Party top echelons remain tight-lipped about the whole affair. The MLP Disciplinary Board has said that it cannot take action unless there is conclusive evidence of abuse. The Small Claims Tribunal rapped Buhagiar's knuckles very soundly but was unable to penalise his overcharging. The MLP board wants a judicial condemnation before it will stir to carry out the post-mortem. It sounds very much like the Government Commission on Corruption.Even more irritating is the reaction by Martin Balzan, MAM Secretary General who surprisingly rushed off to send this newspaper a list of the fees that MAM had agreed with one insurance agency. His apparent interest in communicating the fees was fuelled by our report of Louis Buhagiar’s story. When asked for his comments when MaltaToday published more proof that Louis Buhagiar had exceeded these limits, it was waffle, waffle, waffle.

Some doctors, like some lawyers and some architects, demand expect and imagine that they enjoy immunity from reality: self-regulation, cosy arrangements and permanent hush hush. The removal of VAT receipts for medical professions was a unnecessary measure and yet it did not seem to have pleased the profession. Now they are complaining about assessments made by the Tax Compliance Unit. Still on health, I can only imagine what lies behind the walls of the Mater Dei hospital. Because it is a hospital nobody seems to question the architectural monstrosity it is nor the massive tax burden it implies.

Did we need such an extensive development?

This white elephant has destroyed the small green buffer zone between the harbour area and Birkirkara costing us millions of liri. It promises to cost us millions more for ever and ever.

Millions are like statistics. Nobody can relate to them. It's the dance of the decimal points. In this case it goes to music.

It's impossible to check on when the work started, when plans were changed, when deadlines moved and were shifted. Better still: who was chosen to provide what? How?

This public project does not have a checks and balances system that is open to public scrutiny.The other day on the telly, a seemingly colourless programme hosted by Tony Barbaro Sant dealt with the morbid subject of undertakers.

The programme was not bad at all.

The best part of the programme was the revelation or insinuation that hospital officials could be on the take for informing some undertakers of the sudden demise of people at hospital or out of hospital.

The very serious allegations were discussed in an environment of unbelievable frankness.

Next day, I skimmed the newspapers, searching for some reaction by the Health minister, his shadow minister, the MUMN, MAM or the press.

There was none. Are they all deaf or simply dumbstruck like the rest of us?