Joseph Muscat’s brilliant way of shortening waiting-lists for surgery: appointing an ophthalmic surgeon to his cabinet, so that he can’t operate
Published:
April 17, 2013 at 9:14pm
This point was made by Min Jaf, in a comment beneath another post:
So, how does appointing an ophtalmic surgeon to the cabinet, so stopping him from operating, contribute to drastically shortening the Mater Dei Hospital waiting list as promised by Labour?
And how does, then, permitting that same ophthalmic surgeon to continue to operate only on private patients contribute to fulfilling that promise?
Or would that cause patients on the long(er) Mater Dei Hospital waiting-list to migrate to the private hospitals, indirectly shortening the state hospital waiting-list while contributing to the bottom line of key switcher Josie Muscat’s hospital?
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Spot on Min Jaf…my thoughts exactly.
Also, if their idea of going private is the solution to the waiting lists, it will be counterproductive.
The reason is that the surgeons are paid a fixed salary fod their work at Mater Dei, so whether they perform 10 or 100 surgeries in a month, they still get paid the same salary.
However, in private practice, they get paid according to the amount of hours/complexity of the procedure.
Therefore, they will have no incentive to reduce the waiting list at hospital, as they stand to gain from it.
I don’t think that it will be a problem. To be honest, I believe that a person with such ability has so much to offer. During the past 5 years I was taught by Hon. F.Zammit Dimech (still teaching this year), Dr. Carm Mifsud Bonnici & Dr. Tonio Borg, they were very busy at that time- one was The Minister of Justice and the other was Vice-President, however they always done their best and Dr. Mifsud Bonnici in my opinion is one of the best lecturers that the faculty ever had and it would have been silly to have him removed on the basis that he holds such office because he was of great help to us students.
The same could happen in such case, because who was under the care of Mercieca values his ability in this sector. With regards to private practice, although it is against the code of ethics, one have to analyse the situation carefully, as the waiting list would increase if he stops seeing people personally. And don’t forget, if what I heard is true, in some procedures he is the only soul practitioner and therefore there is no other alternative either he do this or patients has to go abroad.
I think a good remedy will be, to call for foreign ophthalmic surgeons like him and employ them here, (although they have to pay them much more as the salaries of doctors working at Mater Dei and those working in England are definitely different).
I think that Mercieca is waiting for Godfrey Farrugia to collapse to become Minister of health, Marlene must be really worried .
No, their method of reducing the waiting list is to cancel appointments, with no reason given.
And is not a rumour, it happened to somebody I know.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-04-18/news/censu-tabone-had-stopped-ophthalmology-practice-when-appointed-minister-1416855554/