Daphne, Dr Jean Pierre Farrugia is a very honest person. He judges his colleagues like many people do: he thinks that all are like him. It wouldn’t even cross his mind that someone would forward to the newspapers what he wrote to his colleagues.

The document is a consultation document. It was open for consultation for weeks and the Minister had a number of consultation sessions with both doctors’ association as well as patients groups.

If this is not democracy was is – the 1977 Mintoff style of health reform?

Dr Farrugia is not a tiresome schoolboy. His agenda is the common good. He’s not asking for some MEPA permit. After all, this issue was not in the PN election programme.

Did you read the consultation document or just heard what the PL have been repeating?

Because if a consultation document that plans to put Malta’s GP practice on a sound, 2010, technolgical basis is a free fall, then I have reason to believe that you did not even bother reading the document.

Just in case this is the link:http://www.thesynapse.net/download/HCR20091207.pdf

It was either in this blog or in one of your opinion pieces where the issue of certain doctors who might be solely motivated by financial interests in the running of their profession and who pleasing the big pharma marketing lobby in their prescriptions even for a minor infection which can be resolve on its own.

Jean Pierre contrasts by far with such behaviour. I too share some concerns on the proposed reform.

(1) Would the GP rates increase if the demand for their service will increase follwoing the basic economic principle of supply and demand?

(2) If such scenario would materialise, would low income earners have a very limited access to free health care, thus creating a social inequality? Those who can afford and those who not stay without health care.

In the USA, President Obama is trying to make health care accessible to everyone. Would the proposed reform be doing the reverse, If this was the case the Nationalist party would be only paying lip service to Demo-Christian values it claims to believe in. It would not be the PN we believed in.

Everyone’s on a power trip that’s what. People fail to understand that being appointed to parliament is not a question of serving one’s own interest but that of the nation and if that means having to abide by a decision of you’re party leader done in the best interest of the island so be it. These heroes all think about what they’re going to thrive first before confronting the idea that they form part of a team which serves a bigger purpose.

If an ‘awful politician’ has the ability to single-handedly brake his party’s free fall in such an essential social matter, then let us have more of it.

[Daphne – Without the attendant drama, stupidities, round-robin emails and quotes to Super One and Malta Today, and I’m not only referring to Jean Pierre here.]

I follow your blog because it is simply entertaining to read your articles which hit home as to what you basically have in your mind, while other journalists tend to circle around many petty details and lose out on the real argument.

However, allow me to add that your comments about Dr.Jean Pierre Farrugia are neither very insightful nor a great example of unbiased journalism.

Don’t you think that after we read today’s newspapers that Dr. Cassar, health minister, that changes will be made from the original proposals for this important health reform, some credit must be attributed to Dr. Jean Pierre Farrugia?

It would be hard to imagine a parliamentary system anywhere in which the health minister would not be questioned on such an important reform!

[Daphne – Nobody is questioning – still less me – Jean Pierre Farrugia’s duty, as distinct from right, to challenge aspects of reform proposals. That is what MPs are there for. What brought both his sense of judgement and his loyalty into doubt was his decision to circulate as a round-robin an email message which he had sent already to the prime minister. If he didn’t foresee that it would be leaked, it was folly of the first order. If he did foresee that it would be leaked, then this was dastardly. In fact, the act of circulating that email has completely overshadowed its content.]

John, of course I know who he is. He is practically my parents’ nextdoor neighbour. His experience is legendary. But his memory is not, like the rest of us. That’s where IT comes into play. It can save lives.

I know of a particular case, long ago, involving the same doctor, who unknowingly prescribed medications that nearly did someone in, because he wasn’t aware that the patient had a rare form of allergy.

Thank God, it was written in the hospital file, and the patient was saved. That patient happened to be a relative of mine. And if the doctor had a computer and was able to access the patient’s medical record, he would have avoided this mistake. This is just a little tip of the iceberg.