Primary healthcare doctors have held over 200,000 telephone and video consultations through the Telemedicine service since the start of the pandemic, as patients avoided face-to-face appointments.
The service was set up a month after COVID-19 hit Malta in March 2020 and is operated round the clock by a team of general practitioners.
In the first few months of the pandemic, people were encouraged to stay at home to stop the spread of the virus while those with symptoms were asked not to go to clinics.
Calls were made by people who needed support and were afraid or unable to leave their house for medical advice, senior GPs Patrick Galea and Sonia Abela said.
The patients ranged from those experiencing post-operation problems and distressed mothers who had just given birth to people battling a range of mental health problems.
The GPs manning the service take referrals from a client support centre that diverts calls to relevant specialists, who then vet whether health centre doctors ought to follow up with a visit to the patient at home.
Healthcare by the numbers
Galea and Abela were speaking during the Eleventh Biennial Primary Healthcare Conference held on Friday.
They shared statistics that showed the way primary health care helped tackle the health crisis.
The COVID follow-up team made over 31,000 phone calls to people who tested positive
“Primary healthcare was key in helping in the general vaccination roll-out programme and in flattening the death rate curve,” Galea said.
He said Malta’s primary healthcare team had provided support in the administration of over 940,000 COVID vaccines and had given over 73,000 influenza jabs since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, the COVID follow-up team made over 31,000 phone calls to people who tested positive, he said.
Earlier George Vella, head of advisory at Grant Thornton, said that preliminary research into the ongoing public healthcare reform showed that 38 per cent of current patients feel ‘satisfied’ with the primary healthcare system and 33 were ‘very satisfied’.
Seventy-one per cent of the population attended a health centre within the span of a year. Of those who did not, 66 per cent said they would do so if the service was updated.
Lina Sultana, senior staff nurse, said that since the introduction of a breast screening programme in 2008, 240,000 mammograms were carried out on eligible women aged over 50. Cancer was detected in 1,500 cases. When it came to colorectal cancer screening, which started in 2013 for men and women aged over 55, 132,000 tests were carried out and cancer was detected in 225 cases.
In the case of cervical cancer screening that started in 2015 for women over 25, there were 13,800 smear tests done, with cancer detected in seven cases.
How to book a digital consultation with a doctor
Step 1: Book an appointment by calling 21231231 or 21222444.
Step 2: You will receive an email with your appointment time and date. The email will also include a link to join a Microsoft Teams meeting.
Step 3: At your appointment time, click the 'join meeting' link in the email.
Step 4: If prompted, grant Microsoft Teams permission to access your computer microphone and camera.
Step 5: Type your name into the field that pops up, and click 'join now'.