The Health Minister: he sees private patients then issues a statement denying it
Published:
March 28, 2013 at 9:11pm
The Malta Independent received a tip-off that the Health Minister is seeing private patients (cabinet ministers are barred from private practice/business even if they are not remunerated for it) on Thursdays from 8.30am at Browns Pharmacy in Haz-Zebbug.
The newspaper sent a reporter and photographer along this morning and photographed the Health Minister, Godfrey Farrugia, when he turned up to a waiting queue of patients at the pharmacy. The photographs and details are published online.
The newspaper also rang the pharmacy to fix an appointment with Dr Farrugia and was given one for 2 May.
If you have not done so already, read the story in the link below
15 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-03-28/news/health-minister-still-seeing-patients-at-zebbug-clinic-1280278528/
Isn’t Joseph going to revise the ministers’ code of ethics? Such standards are only for the PN, Labour doesn’t need them because Malta Taghna Lkoll.
The point of revising the minister’s code of ethics is to retroactively justify such behaviour. No doubt it will also cover the fact that Keith Allen Schembri still owns and runs considerable businesses.
Worrying indeed, but the comments posted after the article are just as worrying as they seem to think that not only is he doing nothing wrong, but that he should carry on in this manner and be praised for it!
The Malta Independent is amazing! Can the minister face charges for this?
Not if Toni Abela has anything to say about it!
Does this apply to being a lecturer and an examiner at university?
Yes, it does. The objective is not to deprive sitting ministers of additional remuneration, but to ensure that they focus on their ministerial work.
In the taghna ukoll scheme of schemes that is just the most minute of fibs. Waiting for the beefier ones.
I’d like to point out that the pharmacy does NOT take appointments. Try calling them to fix an appointment with any doctor. The pharmacy and clinic are separate, even though they are in the same building!
I can vouch for this. I am the owner. The Health Centre and our Pharmacy are two separate entities. We just share a building.
Contrary to what has been reported, since his appointment, Dr.Farrugia has not been seeing clients/patients in what used to be his clinic. He private practice has been taken over by two GPs’.
Vincent Moran also used to see patients while he was minister. I don’t think he ever bothered denying it though.
At 8.30am on a Thursday morning, shouldn’t the Minister be at work, in his office at the A&E of the Mater Dei hospital?
Is this a case in which the Minister has transferred his office to Mater Dei to check on the hospital staff and breathe down their neck, but then he spends work hours doing his constituency work in Zebbug?
Someone once asked Picasso why he was a communist.
He said listen son, when you are as rich as I am, you can be whatever you want.
Tghidx kemm qalu fuq l-etikett tal-ministri ghax Tonio Fenech accetta daqxejn ta’ arlogg. Issa xi jghidu ghal dan l-abbuzz.