Government mismanagement of the national health system is forcing people to resort to private healthcare because they can no longer cope with long waiting lists and out-of-stock medicines, Opposition Leader Bernard Grech said on Wednesday. 

He was speaking during a brief interview on the PN’s television station NET.

Grech said public healthcare was on the “brink of collapse”, with frequent reports of patients having their planned surgeries postponed. 

“People are not getting the service that they deserve,” Grech said. 

“Robert Abela and his government have forced healthcare into becoming a paid service. When people are in pain or they cannot afford to wait, they end up having no option but to go private to receive treatment.” 

Despite paying taxes for a health system that was supposed to be guaranteed to them, people were being forced to pay for something that was already owed to them, he said.

Grech said he often received pictures of patients being treated in corridors because of a lack of space, and workers too were struggling to keep up in these conditions.

“One cannot simply grow the population, as the government has done, and not invest in hospitals. You end up with a system that is overstretched and overstressed, workers are suffering and patients are not getting the best service they could be getting,” the opposition leader said. 

‘Government being miserly with educators’

Turning to the education system, Grech said that the government was being miserly with educators and dragging its feet on settling collective agreements with MCAST and University of Malta staff as well as teachers in government schools. 

While the PN appreciated the important role educators had in the upbringing of children and their holistic development, the government did not appear to hold educators in the same regard, given its behaviour, Grech said.