Not sure whether you have correct info
Cross linking is for keratoconus and is not performed at state hospital as my son did both eyes at st James.

[Daphne – It is only cosmetic eye surgery that is not performed at the expense of the health department, Pan. If there is a medical procedure that can’t be performed at the state hospital, then the health department pays for the patient to get it done outside Malta. It is the cosmetic procedures that are performed at St James, for example procedures which allow people to stop wearing glasses or contact lenses.]

[Daphne – No, he doesn’t. I checked.]

The uglier truth would be if this was an issue of journalists self preservation because otherwise, why is no one insisting that certain appointees, such as the Director of Nursing for example, have their credentials published so that staff know who is actually leading them and taking decisions?

Appreciated the sarcasm in your comment. However, it was sharp of Daphne to point out that doctors do not have to issue a fiscal receipt.

Your question is a pertinent one: what’s so special about them? I’m not a doctor but IIRC (if I remember correctly) it’s somehow connected to the ‘ex-ufficio’ tax assessments and the doctors’ lock-out of the 70s.

When EFA became prime minister the industrial action was something that needed immediate attention and it seems MAM struck a deal which even excluded them (later on) from issuing a VAT receipt.

You would expect a Labour government to address the issue (social and fiscal equality, bla-bla) but instead condones and defends such behaviour by one of his cronies.

In this particular case, the crux of the matter is that argued by Daphne (who else?): if he’s so needed at hospital (and his clinic by his clients) why make him a PS for the Elderly with a ‘waiver’ to continue with his professional practice?

Exactly. The initial reason for all this was to tip the Gozitan vote. It is a known fact that Mercieca was using his profession to get people who were grateful to him for curing them or some family member, to vote for him.

And of course in Muscat’s typical manner, he only looked as far as the elections result… we’ll see to the rest when the time comes.

Dr Mercieca should return to his profession. After all I haven’t heard anything he has done for us the Maltese elderly. Decide quickly please and show you are “gvern li jisma”.

If Franco Mercieca is REALLY dedicated to his profession, in the first place he shouldn’t have entered politics so that he would have ample time and dedication towards his patients as an eye specialist.

Secondly he shouldn’t have ACCEPTED his role as PS. Iridu jibilghu d-dinja f’daqqa.

Medicine is supposed to be a vocation rather than simply a job, and if something comes along that gets in its way, you either live up to your vocation and decline or renounce your vocation completely.

Instead, I see someone for whom surgery is only a job, which, despite paying him well, is not enough if he can get a place in government too. Shameful.

‘It’s all your fault for printing stories in the media, checking every move I make. See what happened? I’m drawing the line now. And I can do this again, and again, if you don’t behave and shut up. Do you want to criticize me? No problem, but you’ll have to pay the consequences. And children will suffer.’