Around 200 doctors have requested an emergency meeting with the doctors’ union due to “disgruntlement within the profession”.
Times of Malta is informed that on Friday, the group signed a request to call an extraordinary general meeting with the Medical Association of Malta (MAM). The MAM have to organise this within 10 days.
“We want the medical community to take a vote on things that are concerning us,” sources within this group said.
The doctors who signed the statement are members of an advocacy group called Medics for Change, founded last year. This group is dedicated to promoting reform and eliminating discrimination within the medical profession.
MAM is currently in a feud with the government over a lack of consultation about the outsourcing of emergency services to private hospitals.
Last week, the union issued directives to its members - including ordering them to halt the transferring of patients to private hospitals - over the matter. On Friday, the union announced that it shall be “escalating” these directives after a meeting with the government about understaffed health centres went sour.
What disgruntled doctors want from MAM
The request for an extraordinary general meeting stemmed from widespread discontent among professionals.
Sources clarified that they are not making judgments about the directives but expressed concern about the directives' wording and what they said was a lack of communication within the union itself.
They noted that at one point in the directives, the wording appeared to target a specific individual.
“A red line was breached. You cannot turn your guns on one of your own,” sources said.
Overall, sources said that communication within the union was “sub-optimal”. They added that there were no annual general meetings held in 2023 and 2024.
The main issue raised by this group was the union's unwillingness to address the discrimination faced by doctors who engage in private practice alongside their state employment.
Sources said that doctors employed at Mater Dei Hospital who also engage in private practice receive 20 to 30 per cent less pay for the same hours worked, compared to their colleagues who do not participate in private practice.
They say the government is willing to subcontract private hospitals to outsource emergency patients, but then discrimate against people who wish to partake in private practice.
High-ranking committee members of the MAM recognised this to be an issue, but nothing was done about it, they said.
In light of this, sources said that over a hundred people plan to file a judicial protest about this discrimination issue, as they were not heard by their union. However, this has been delayed as the group felt it would be inappropriate to call a judicial process given the current situation.
Speaking earlier on Saturday on a radio show, Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela said the government was willing to pay doctors contracted to work exclusively with the public sector extra if they helped take on private patient loads.
"We will pay doctors on contract A extra on a per-patient basis if they want to take work on this private sector initiative," he said.