When I came out of hospital recently (that’s a story for another day), I was told that I needed a “carer”. Not full-time, not 24-hour attention: just, mainly, caring for me as a post-trauma patient. Better still, there is a government grant available for people of my great age, to pay somebody to do the job.

Is that not wonderful? Care for the aged rates highly in Malta; the health service is actually called the ministry of health and active ageing; then there is community care, and elderly care, and social security, and a department of the elderly within the ministry of Gozo.

There are social workers, and nurses who come round to organise your pill-taking for the current week, and drivers who will take you to the shops, and others who will bathe or shampoo you and even, if necessary, will help you change your clothing up to three times a day.

There are Meals on Wheels (€2.20 for a three-course lunch, delivered to your door); you can get a pendant to wear round your neck with a button to press to call an ambulance in an emergency.

Obviously, there is a whole range of resources for the treatment of Alzheimer’s.

In addition, there is a most excellent charity, Friends of the Sick and Elderly in Gozo, for which nothing seems to be too much trouble.

And, on top of it all, there’s a Senior Citizen Grant for pensioners of €300 a year.

That means there is loads of help for the ageing community, about which Malta can and should be proud.

What there isn’t, though, is a carer.

In Malta, somebody who looks after a house-bound patient requires a certificate: they need to be a “certified carer”, which requires accreditation from the university following a 17-week course. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not many people have gone that route towards a career for a carer. (To put it another way, an insufficient number have done that.)

There is a growing need for carers but no carers to be had- Revel Barker

Bottom line here is that the majority of staff in Maltese care homes are surely not actually qualified (certified) either. Kindly-minded folk can spend their lifetime being carers – becoming highly experienced in the job – but, uncertified, are not qualified to look after a patient in their own home.

I had a similar problem with my health insurance – mandatory for an ex-pat – which would pay for a registered nurse for six months following surgery. I actually found an Indian lady with a degree in nursing, registered (in India), as a nurse. But not in Malta, where she lives: she needs to acquire the equivalent qualifications in Malta in order to be classed as a “registered nurse” in this country.

And I found a carer on Gozo with 16 years’ experience in the job but with no certificate. In this case, work experience is trumped by a paper from the university, which may be supported by comparatively little or no practical experience of doing the job.

In addition to being a logistical problem for me, it is a great disappointment. Having moved home and travelled round the world a few times, I have found nowhere better than Malta (or, specifically, Gozo) where people care so much for others (including strangers) and this attitude would appear to go all the way up to government level, from where it is reflected so well.

But it creates, rather than solves, the conundrum. Caring, in my case, involves checking, from time to time, that I haven’t fallen over, that I am taking my pills, that I am eating regularly and dressing and washing myself (the basic problems of the lone geriatric). And, said the senior (registered) nurse at Gozo General Hospital, “maybe a little light shopping”.

The fact that I can’t find anybody so qualified (oops: so certified) to commit to such a task is frustrating, to say the least.

Perhaps the elderly-friendly government could give some thought and care to how the system actually works, when there is a growing need for carers but no carers to be had.

Revel Barker is a former Fleet Street reporter and a long-term resident of Gozo.