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Sick leave in Malta and Gozo reminds me of the silly soap opera Sentieri, that appeared for endless years on Berlusconi’s Rete Quattro. There is no end to the saga of Sentieri. Sick leaves in Malta are more or less in the same soup.
The culprits are – and there is no beating round the bush – the medical practitioners.
Instead of removing vacation leave, the government could have easily increased productivity by penalising GPs who abuse of medical certificates. Not all GPs, but a reasonable number are irresponsible. They please their patients at the expense of private companies and the government.
Hundreds if not thousands of employees avoid work and return with a smile on their face every Monday morning, brandishing the blue certificate.
Needless to say, the doctors’ representatives through Dr Martin Balzan, the MAM secretary-general, will rush to print to castigate me for my Cassandra-like remarks. He will probably say that doctors are upright folk who never do such things. He did the same when we ran the Andrea Massa story, suggesting we ran only one side of the story.
And on this particular occasion, I had no qualms informing him that he had no right to a right of reply. But I did tell him that I had no problem if the consultant and surgeon whose names I knew and were mentioned in the magisterial inquiry would have the courage to come up to me and confront the conclusions highlighted in the two investigations of the two separate magistrates.
They did not.
A day in the life at St Luke’s hospital is dotted with innumerable examples of ugly incidents, and if you ask the Minister of Health, who is accountable for such mistakes, and his vibrant spokesperson, there will be no answer.
The magnitude of sick leave abuses should motion government to address the issue with the doctors. Medical practitioners who abuse by issuing sick leave certificates should be held responsible and the MAM should be the first to condemn them.
Objective 1 is that buzzword which means absolutely nothing to most of us. It did mean a lot to the previous Fenech Adami administration. Some four years ago, this newspaper reported and suggested that Malta could end up being a contributor rather than a recipient of funds from the European Union.
Wonder of wonders and guess what, when the story hit the stands, the editor’s phone rang with a sweet voice of one of the many new secretaries from the office of the Prime Minister.
“Jixtieq ikellmek is-Sur Cachia Caruana.” (Mr Cachia Caruana would like to speak to you).
And after that it was listening to all the arguments that the reportage was wrong and a figment of our imagination.
Today, Mr Cachia Caruana is no longer at the centre of things, deprived of his power base and his ability to spin and influence.
It was inevitable that a country with more Ferraris per capita, with the largest savings per capita for any of the accession countries, and with the highest rate of home ownership in the whole of Europe could not possibly expect to attain Objective 1.
To make matters worse the whole raison d’etre for being European was stupidly linked to funds and the Lm100 million promise trumpeted by Nationalist ministers and ex-Presidents.
If that was not enough, we were landed with a Lm9 million plus cement palace in Brussels which somehow continued to fortify the impression that this small republic in the middle of the Mediterranean was either suffering from megalomania or better still, not exactly suffering from lack of funds.
In my case getting into Europe was a cultural, political and environmental long-term project. For the Busuttils and Casas of this world it was to many others’ and my chagrin, a career move. To be fair to them, it has also served the same purpose for all those who campaigned against Europe such as Ellul Bonici and the many other functionaries who work for the Commission and now depend on the benevolence of Brussels.
Last week, Alexis Callus resigned from the local council post and with his resignation came the sad end for the political career of a bright young man with a stupid infatuation problem. His flirtation with fascism was an intolerable episode which cannot be forgiven and his party should have had the gall to kick him out at once instead of simply accepting a tame apology.
The fact that they did not says more about his party than Callus.
What is more shocking is the fact that Callus’s beliefs are not restricted to a few individuals. There are many who share his views. And as I said last week, they come in all hues, green, red and blue.
Some weeks have now passed since the announcement of a magisterial inquiry into the Safi incidents and my impression is that nothing will really change and no one will be found accountable
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