Comments on: To help put things in perspective, here are the facts

By: mrs agius

mrs agius — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:40:16 +0000

the way i see it policlinics and mater dei are doing thier best so you go private. my mother whos 66 went to her appiontment (which by the way made the appiontment a year ago)waited for 4 hours just so the docter gave her a telephone number to phone mater dei to make an appiontment there. no wonder her blood pressure went up. what do they think they are?? playing with people. i don’t think they do that to their mother eh??? couldn’t they give her the phone number last year instead of waiting a year for nothing. now lets see how many months she have to wait for this appiontment.

By: Amanda Mallia

Amanda Mallia — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:13:06 +0000

“Peter Muscat” – (Re your last comment) Kemm waqajt fil-bassezzi u hamallagnijiet. Breeding always outs, doesn’t it?

By: D Fenech

D Fenech — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:07:02 +0000

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2008/07/09/t2.html

By: Peter Muscat

Peter Muscat — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:20:41 +0000

Just a thought!Nothing to do with this subject though.

I was thinking that nobody really knows from where the expression ‘Tal-pepè’ comes.Might have solved this enigma.

It surely comes from ‘pipi’ as some people living in that area have a habit of putting perfume instead of changing their panty?

lol

By: Lino Cert

Lino Cert — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:08:21 +0000

@ Leo Said

my point was that with all the goodwill in the world, it would be impossible to have a policlinic cover all the possible eventualities , and it should not be up to the patient to decide how urgent his case is,
even minor cuts can have serious consequences, for example a badly sutured cut on a child’s face can leave long-term psychological consequences, there is no place for policlinics in a small country like ours, we are very lucky that we have a central hospital that is within half an hour of any place in the island, and it woudl therefore make sense to centralise ALL medical emergencies, however large or small, into one place and have dedicated and experienced staff dealing efficiently and effectively with all kinds of emergencies.

By: Moggy

Moggy — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:29:55 +0000

Health centre doctors are usually doctors who have worked for at least two years in the general hospital. Specialists do attend, but they see cases as per appointment, mornings only. At least that is how I think things stand.

By: Leo Said

Leo Said — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:33:38 +0000

@ Lino Cert

Sadly, I win the impression that you have disqualified yourself to some extent.

Your last message indicates precisely what I wrote above, namely:

“The medical institutions in Malta should seriously consider what kind of medical qualification is necessary before a young doctor sets up private practice”.

Health centres, as centres for primary care/gatekeeper practice, are definitely a solution. It would be however essential that the health centre staff includes doctors with adequate experience. I am/was accustomed to health centres where at least a qualified surgeon, a qualified physician and a gynaecologist are available, even over the weekends.

I admit that the setup was in colloboration with the parent body of medical insurance companies.

The public and the Medical Associations in Malta, as well as the Government of Malta, still have enormous deficiencies with regard to innovative reform.

By: Moggy

Moggy — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:14:50 +0000

I don’t think that a chest infection in a six month old baby sould have been seen in a polyclinic either. It was obviously a hospital case from the word go. I am sorry to hear of your ordeal, and glad that your son came out of it OK.

Polyclinics can cater for a bit more than minor cuts and grazes, believe me.

By: Lino Cert

Lino Cert — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:22:14 +0000

@moggy
I dont think that polyclinics are the answer,
when my son was six months old he got a bad chest infection, it got quite bad on the second day, which was a Sunday, and we decided to take him to Gzira policlinic, there was a large queue of people and my son seemed to be getting worse so we decided to go straight to St Luke’s Casualty, as soon as we got into the Casualty my son got a cardiac arrest ( we found out leter this was because his blood electrolytes had gone all hay-wire) , the CPR team were down in seconds and revived my son, I have no doubt that had I joined the queue in the polyclinic my sone would not be alive today, although I am a doctor I am ashamed to say I did not recognise the signs that my baby son was getting very ill and I really think that policlinics are not the place for anything except for minor cuts and grazes.

By: Lino Cert

Lino Cert — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:24:01 +0000

@MikeC

“Can you let us know the outcome of your conversation about the little girl with the tumour? Your conversation with the communicstion coordinator at the health department, I mean. I’m curious to hear what someone can say in defense of something like that.”

the communication coordinator asked me accusingly , “X-interess ghandek f’dal-kas?” (whats your interest in this case?) , I said “none” , since I didnt know this girl from Adam, though the mum was obviously distressed, he then gave me a form which I had to get several consultants to sign, saying that this girl could not get her procedure done in St Luke’s, it took me a whole day to get all these signatures, then I went back to the co-ordintator, and after a lot of huffing and puffing and a one hour waiting in a queue outside his office he finally gave me the go -ahead to organise this procedure to be done in a private hospital, this girl had the procedure done next day and the Health Department eventually paid the private hospital for it ,

the next day I handed in my resignation.