Health care 'should be community-based'

Faced with escalating costs, the government will find it difficult to finance the health care system as it is and would therefore need some contribution from civil society, the chairman of Zammit Clapp Hospital's management committee, Fredrick Fenech, said.

Hospitals around the world, including large well-known ones, receive donations from the public as well as businesses to be able to give the best service, he told The Times.

Since the elderly are also part of the community, Prof. Fenech said it would be helpful if big companies contributed to help Zammit Clapp Hospital in its efforts aimed at rehabilitating the elderly.

Prof. Fenech said that although the government passed Lm1.5 million a year to the hospital such funds were not enough and the hospital would be able to do more for senior citizens if the financial situation improved. He explained every bed cost about Lm63 a night and there were 60 beds at Zammit Clapp Hospital. The hospital would like to increase the number by 15 but the money was not available.

"Since we have restrictions, we decided to prioritise patient care given the funds we have. But the hospital also needs maintenance and there are a lot of things we would like to do," he said.

Prof. Fenech said the hospital has been offering an excellent service to the Maltese community since it opened in 1991 and patient evaluation showed a high satisfaction with the service offered. Sixty-five per cent of the patients return to their homes after rehabilitation. The average age of patients is 80 and the average stay at the hospital is of 22 days.

"The success of the hospital is the result of the holistic approach to health care and the professionalism of its staff," he said, adding that the hospital gets "first class marks" but could do with a little more support.

Prof. Fenech said more beds for rehabilitation were needed. However, he expressed his belief that for health care to be as cost-effective as possible it should be community-based.

"We need more community services because the more we keep the elderly within their community the healthier they are," he said, adding that since Malta was a small country there was the advantage of relatives living close by. In addition, there were a lot of quiet caregivers within the community. As a result of an aging population, there were elderly people looking after other elderly people.

"We try our best to keep the elderly as mobile as possible but this is a drop in the ocean," he said. Prof. Fenech said Maltese society will have to face the problem of an aging population.

However, he went on, there were things which the country could do. First of all, he said, older people could contribute a lot to society. Even if they were taking care of grandchildren, they were still contributing because otherwise the parents would need to pay a babysitter. Apart from that, he said, the elderly also contributed through their knowledge.

"We believe in active aging because the more active the elderly remain, the longer they live," he said.

Hospital general manager Joseph Micallef said the annual patient turnover stood at about 1,000 even though there were just 60 beds. He admitted the hospital was facing increasing pressure on its services because the older the patients the greater the disability they were likely to have and so the need for rehabilitation services was even more acute.