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An extensive investigation carried out in 2002 by MaltaToday revealed how British medical insurance companies were investigating a number of Maltese doctors, including Prof. Louis Buhagiar over excessive fees charged to tourists requiring medical assistance while in Malta.
Prof. Buhagiar instituted libel proceedings against this newspaper and the court awarded him damages to the tune of Lm4,000. MaltaToday has appealed from the decision.
In 2002 a delegation of British insurance agencies had visited Malta and met with the Health Department’s highest officials to discuss the issue of overcharging by doctors.
In court the director general of health, Dr Ray Busuttil submitted a number of files containing complaints received by the health authorities in Malta from British insurance agencies over the issue of overcharging.
The court evidence also showed that Prof. Buhagiar was one of the doctors who had attracted the attention of British insurance agencies for the exorbitant fees he charged tourists. The average fee charged by Buhagiar for medical services rendered to tourists was Lm110 per day.
In correspondence with MaltaToday, representatives of British insurance companies said they were mulling the idea of charging an additional premium to tourists visiting Malta like they did with tourists visiting the US and Canada.
In court, the director of institutional health Dr John Cachia also confirmed that he had forwarded the complaints to the Medical Council since it was not the department’s competence to investigate fees imposed by doctors.
However, the Medical Council never investigated Prof. Buhagiar since the complaints that reached it were not legally admissible since they were not made personally by the patients themselves.
MaltaToday had also reproduced a sentence delivered by the Small Claims Tribunal which had decreed that the fee charged by Prof. Louis Buhagiar to a Maltese terminally ill patient was “excessive”. The tribunal had also revised the doctor’s fee downwards from Lm60 a day to Lm50.
But Louis Buhagiar’s fees had been in the spotlight a month before MaltaToday started investigating the issue with various news reports appearing in other newspapers on a complaint made by a British tourist over the treatment meted out to her by Dr Buhagiar while a patient at St Luke’s Hospital.
Giving evidence in court the director general of health Dr Ray Busuttil confirmed that he had notified the police to investigate allegations of misconduct by Prof. Buhagiar. The notification to the police was made on 8 April 2002, a month before MaltaToday published its first report on the complaints raised by foreign insurance agencies.
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