MP defends doctors in sickness certificates issue

Labour MP Adrian Vassallo has insisted in parliament that doctors were not necessarily abusing when they issued a substantial amounts of medical certificates.

There was nothing unusual in having a doctor issuing 3,500 certificates in eight months. This meant that this particular doctor would have issued an average of 16 to 17 certificates for every working day, he said in an adjournment speech.

One had to keep in mind that in every locality there were doctors who were more popular than others and certificates were now required not just by workers but by students attending MCAST, the Junior Lyceum, the university and the unemployed.

The Social Policy Ministry had claimed that those doctors who issued the most certificates were those who declared the least (in income tax). Yet, these doctors could be the most popular and had lots of clients because they charged less, Dr Vassallo said.

Referring to the fact that 200 doctors had been warned by the Social Security Department because they had issued consecutively numbered certificates for a number of weeks, Dr Vassallo said it was true that certificates were only supposed to be issued once weekly but in certain cases there were conscientious doctors who knew their clients and they would know that they would be on sick leave for an extended period. Therefore, in order to save them numerous visits they issued them a number of certificates at one go.

As for the fact that more certificates were issued during the hunting period, Dr Vassallo said the government had its own doctors who went on house visits to check if these people were really sick. So how was it that the abuse that was being claimed was taking place? Each case, he pointed out, had to be studied on its merits.

Dr Vassallo also referred to an article in The Times by Claire Bonello who referred to comments he had made in parliament that spoonbills which were claimed to have been slaughtered at the Ghadira nature reserve could not have been shot from close range.

Had the person writing the article read the newspapers, Dr Vassallo said, she would have realised that after he made his statement it had been claimed that the spoonbills had not actually been killed at the reserve. One had been shot at Bahar ic-Caghaq. The other was seen at Dwejra and no one knew whether or not it had actually been killed.