Not true.

They provide a service just like other professionals do. Yet they remain exempt from the obligation to issue fiscal receipts, getting paid in cash that many of them do not feel obliged to declare. Neither party has ever dealt with this issue, whilst making sure that others, especially those in employment are taxed on every penny they earn.

Because medical students and doctors do not fit into the scheme of selling stuff. State hospitals are not businesses, and medical students are not businessmen. Maltese politicians find it very hard to deal with anyone that’s not a businessman. The Nationalist administration found it hard too, but not to this extent.

In my day 3 As were required for admission and only 50 students were accepted every 2 years.

Standards need to be improved. They were lessened in order to accomodate the brain drain of Maltese doctors opting to do their internship in europe after we entered the EU.

I do agree that the understanding of the Maltese language should be a requirement for entry as taking a proper history of the patients complaint is critical .

As for the recent news that Barts will be operational all over Malta, that should have been obvious from the start as the knowledge gained by the students from the few Gozitan patients and medical tourism patients (in the Gozo hospital) would be limited especially as most medical tourism patients would come over just for elective surgery, limiting the students exposure to a very few different diseases and operations.

The problem that Maltese patients should be concerned about is that our government hospitals are teaching hospitals, this means that medical students are allowed to repeatedly examine the patients. With 150 plus students each in 3/4/5th year, there are already 450 studends roaming around looking for interesting patients to examine. With the addition of Barts students the number
will become ridiculous.
Patients rights need to be respected, but i do not see how they will.

If you read the attachment, they said that in order to enter the course as Barts’ students they have to have 3 A levels plus an interview – so in actual fact they expect even better grades.

So! Maybe the UoM will be in a position to accomodate the Maltese students and not award Cs so as to impede them from eligibility to even enter this course of study!
The question one should ask is, ‘Are the foreign students eligible only upon obtaining Bs or better or are they eligible even when they have poorer grades?’

Is this also going to be a requirement of the Bart’s students, or is this just a ploy to divert the many foreign students to Barts instead?

In this case, the University of Malta will be losing a significant amount of income just to make Barts look profitable.