The Malta Association of Medical Students welcomes the building of a new medical school because Chris Fearne told them that everything will be OK
The Malta Association of Medical Students has circulated the letter below to its members.
The letter sums up everything that is wrong with your typical Maltese attitude towards the democratic process and the (non)questioning of authority figures. Instead of using their own skills and abilities to gather, independently, information on the situation, analyse it and prepare a situation report for their own use and to lobby for their rights, they go to the politician unarmed with information, and instead of demanding that information in written form, as a report, they seek reassurances from the ‘parent figure’.
They should, at the outset, have protested – I don’t mean in the streets, but formally – at the fact that they were treated as incidental in the matter and not consulted or kept informed.
This is why, in Malta, we end up in the messes we do – because we deserve no better. Had these students made an independent appraisal of the facts and read everything that has been published – most specifically, the letter which Queen Mary University sent to its own students – they would know that the students at the new school will be competing directly with students at the Malta Medical School for facilities, patients and places on the foundation programme, as outlined by a doctor – not a medical student – in an email to me which I published last night.
Now call me a stickler for the detail, but the devil invariably lies therein. What sort
of level of analysis or precision can you expect from a medical student who writes ‘Queens Mary University’ and ‘implimentation’? The ‘Queens Mary’ error is particularly telling, given that it was the prime minister who made this mistake and Norma Saliba at TVM who picked it up. The newspapers have all referred to ‘Queen Mary’, despite the fact that the prime minister’s speech, as released to the press, talked about Green Mary’s.
It is quite clear from the tone and order of priority of the contents of the letter
that the over-riding aim of the meeting was to get reassurances from the parliamentary secretary for health that all would be OK.
It sounds as though whoever went along to the meeting had his/her loyalty to the Labour Party in conflict with his/her loyalty to the association of medical students, and was desperate for reassurances that would square that particular circle.
It is equally clear that Chris Fearne’s priority was to make sure the medical students would immediately hold a press conference to back up this government decision, which they are doing today.
The fascinating thing – and this is typical of the Taghna Lkoll Movement process – is that instead of going away after their meeting with Fearne, discussing the matter among themselves, checking up on the veracity of what he said, and preparing their own situation report before talking to the press, the representatives of the Malta Association of Medical Students scheduled a press conference immediately after meeting him with no discussion in the interim and no canvassing of the opinion and concerns of their own members.
This brings to mind the way certain Taghna Lkoll officials of the Malta Employers Association released a statement to the press in the general election campaign, saying that the MEA is in favour of the Labour Party’s ‘electricity plan’ – without consulting their fellow officials, their members or even discussing the plan, such as it was, in committee.
Malta is ripe for dictatorship, really – it’s the colonial mindset.
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Dear fellow medical students,
Yesterday, as promised, we had a meeting with the Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Hon. Mr. Fearne.
We raised a number of concerns with regards to the new Barts Medical School in Gozo, namely whether the new medical school will affect our teaching quality and what will happen if the targets being published for the building of the Barts medical school are not reached.
Mr. Fearne gave us a number of reassurances:
– the new medical school will make absolutely minimal use of the facilities in Mater Dei Hospital. Such use will be reserved solely to certain subspecialities and will be scheduled in such a way so as not to impair the teaching quality of our own medical school
– most of the teaching staff for this new medical school will include foreign teachers from Queens Mary University.
– the medical school will open in September 2016, during which time the pre-clinical section of the course will commence. Until September 2018, these students will not need clinical rotations. Consequently there will be more time for the building of the new hospital and its promotion as a destination for medical tourism. In the first two years, students will only make use of lecturing facilities for their preclinical years. They will not make use of Mater Dei Hospital if the construction targets are not adhered to.
In light of this, the MMSA welcomes the news of the building of this new medical school, as an attractive investment which will hopefully improve the quality of medical education in Malta, and provided that these reassurances are kept.
We will be holding a press conference to highlight our position later on today, during Healthfest. I believe that, in doing so, we will be stressing on the accountability we expect from the government for these promises to be kept.
The MMSA will also be monitoring the development of this new hospital, with Mr. Fearne promising that he will keep us in the loop as an important stakeholder.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any other queries or suggestions
I wish the future Board of Directors the best of luck in monitoring this important issue and ensuring that this project’s implimentation runs as smoothly as possible.
Malta Medical Students’ Association (MMSA) | L-Għaqda tal-Istudenti tal-Mediċina ta’ Malta
Mobile: +356 79248150
Email:president@mmsa.org.mt
Web: www.mmsa.org.mt
University of Malta, Medical School
Mater Dei General Hospital
Birkirkara Bypass
Msida MSD 2090
Malta, Europe
Malta Medical Students’ Association (MMSA) | L-Għaqda tal-Istudenti tal-Mediċina ta’ Malta