Misleading information

I really don’t know whether to excuse Klaus Vella Bardon (January 7) for the outrageously misleading medical misinformation in his latest anti-choice contributions to the press.

Equating emergency preterm delivery (by caesarean section, when, for example, the mother’s life is in extreme danger) with a late- term induced abortion (by vaginal delivery, for example, for a fatal fetal anomaly) is medically incorrect.

Stating that a vaginal delivery puts the mother’s life at greater risk than an emergency preterm C section delivery is false.

Hopefully, this erroneous belief was unintentional. I would encourage him to be better prepared when it comes to regaling the lay public with his anti-choice comments.

Isabel Stabile, obo Doctors for Choice – St Julian’s

Huge price difference

The international edition of The Sunday Telegraph, along with most other local and foreign newspapers, is printed in Malta by one printing firm. The newspaper’s masthead shows that the price is £2.90 in Gibraltar and €5.70 in Malta. At the current Stg/Euro exchange rate, this means that the price in Malta is much higher (+ about 67 per cent) than that in Gibraltar! How this is justified is beyond comprehension and merits investigation by the competent authorities.

Anthony Curmi – St Julian’s

Pension fraud of some top doctors

Albert Fenech (left) and Victor Calvagna

Malta’s 2021 ended with the sad news of its loss of Albert Fenech and of Victor Calvagna. Fenech, together with Alex Manché, created our cardiac services and Calvagna organised paediatric oncology in collaboration with London’s Royal Marsden Hospital.

What hardly anybody knows is that a doctor like Fenech, who had worked in the UK’s NHS for around 20 years, and for a similar time span in Malta’s health service, would have hardly got any Malta pension to speak of.  Malta’s social security department would have deducted most of his local pension because he would have been in receipt of a UK NHS civil service pension.

To provide Malta with a highly professional service, Fenech would, therefore, have not only suffered a significant diminution of his potential UK civil service pension (because he left the UK well before retiring age) but also endured a deduction of almost all his Maltese NHS work-related pension entitlement.  

This is how our republic rewards some of its citizens – with an institutional pension fraud (and some political crocodile tears).

Albert Cilia-Vincenti – president, National Association of Service Pensioners, Attard

Frustration

I wonder if this is the normal way of getting a test for COVID.

After hearing I had been in contact with a person with COVID, I applied online last Tuesday. I gave all details including my address in Gozo. On Wednesday afternoon, I received a booking on my computer for a test on Thursday, at Pembroke in Malta.

I tried to reply to the e-mail asking to have a test in Gozo where I reside and got no answer. I tried phoning the helpline 111 and spent nearly two hours listening to music. I tried going to the Xewkija centre for testing and was told to phone 111 as they could do nothing to help. On returning home, I tried phoning 111 but only got the engaged sound.

To whom does one complain?

Audrey Pace – Victoria

Two weights, two measures

Without going into the legalities of Fr David Muscat’s being charged with hate speech (January 8), it is an encouraging hope for a civilised society that this sort of behaviour is not tolerated. It would be meaningful progress if this zero tolerance to spewing hate for all sorts of reasons is extended across the board to all and sundry.

Anna Micallef – Sliema

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