Chemotherapy patients should not have to cross over to Malta to receive their medical treatment, the Nationalist Party has said, in a pledge to make that service, as well as MRI scans available in Gozo if elected into government.
The PN’s health-related pledge for Gozo joins other proposals which the party has made to improve healthcare services on Malta’s sister island: building a new 400-bed hospital for Gozo and building helipads to provide a proper medical helicopter service linking Gozo General and Mater Dei hospitals.
Josephine Xuereb, a nurse and PN electoral candidate, said Gozitans diagnosed with cancer were currently forced to cross over to Malta once or twice a week for chemotherapy sessions – trips made especially difficult due to their weakened immune systems.
“We are committed to doing away with this unnecessary suffering if we are in government,” she said, adding that the PN would also invest to ensure MRI scans could be carried out in Gozo.
A new Gozo hospital
PN MP Chris Said, who also serves as the party’s spokesperson for Gozo, reiterated the party’s pledge to build a new 400-bed hospital on the island as well as to take back Gozo General Hospital from private operators Stewards Health Care.
“Gozitans deserve no less,” he said.
Chris Said, Peter Agius and Josephine Xuereb during Sunday's press conference. Photo: PNA hospital helipad in Gozo
PN spokesperson Peter Agius said the party was also committed to creating an airlink between Gozo’s hospital and the country’s main hospital, Mater Dei.
Mater Dei has its own helipad, which is however not used and instead serves as a car park for staff members. It is due to be destroyed to make way for a new outpatients’ block, which received the green light from planners earlier this year.
While Gozo General Hospital has its own helicopter ambulance, it has no helipad of its own and must make use of one in Xewkija.
Speaking from that helipad, Agius argued that the current arrangement is totally unsuited to medical emergencies.
“A patient must spend 10 minutes in an ambulance from the Gozo hospital in Victoria to the helipad in Xewkija, be flown by helicopter to Malta and then be placed in another ambulance to be taken to Mater Dei. This is a waste of time that can mean the difference between life and death,” he said.