There is an excellent piece about the Barts and The London Gozo project in The Vulture
The Vulture has been Barts and The London’s in-house ‘voice’ for around a century. This piece was published in May last year, after the agreement was signed between the Malta government and Barts and The London. I actually felt embarrassed for myself and my colleagues in the Maltese press when reading it, because quite frankly, it’s work we should have done ourselves.
The Vulture was better informed than we were, and served its readers better – even though our readers here in Malta have a more general direct interest.
The Malta Medical School, I learn today from this piece in The Vulture published last year, was not consulted even though it has an already burdensome student population of 650.
The Malta Medical Student Association Malta Medical Student Association objected right at the outset that “the introduction of a new medical school on the Maltese islands may directly affect our daily learning experience which may already be compromised by the increasing number of students admitted to the [University of Malta’s] medical course”.
The article also says:
While this sounds initially exciting, with the potential for a cheap, easy elective to sunny Malta, the memorandum has been criticised by several groups. (…) Mater Dei Hospital, Malta’s primary teaching hospital, would face significant burden from these new students.
University of Malta’s Medical School already has 650 students, a number which has doubled in the past decade. Malta’s medical students also face similar employment concerns to their UK counterparts.
Their foundation programme is close to oversubscription, with 100 jobs offered this year to the graduating class. With 190 students due to graduate in 2019 and the potential introduction of a private medical school, this would compromise job opportunities for graduates, says MMSA.
It should also be noted that Gozo is not actually on the island of Malta. It is located North West of Malta and has a population of ~31,000. That is 13% of the population of Tower Hamlets (237,900 in 2010). Malta itself only has 402,000 which is less than double the population of Tower Hamlets. The diverse clinical exposure we receive in East London cannot possible equate to that of Malta.
Malta’s University Student Council (KSU), a national student union that represents all university and college students of Malta, says that “all stakeholders should have been consulted” regarding the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. They claim that the MMSA, Malta Health Students’ Association and Malta Association of Dentistry Students were not consulted or informed.
We’ll admit QML did some consultation with students, if you count their Education Liaison Manager posting on The Student Room for feedback. KSU also approached Malta’s Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and the Faculty of Dental students, but academics were not appropriately informed to comment on developments