A friend of mine who is undergoing chemo treatment in hospital, got a call the other day telling her to stay home and quarantine because when she had been to hospital for her chemo session there had been someone with the coronavirus.

She is, of course, devastated, waiting at home, to see if the virus will manifest itself, and bracing herself for a tough time if it does. It is a terrible, cruel wait. We all know what this virus means for people with underlying conditions.

If she lived in Iceland this would not have happened. If she lived in Iceland, that person with the virus would not have been anywhere near the hospital because he would have been tested before he had the symptoms.

Like us, Iceland is a small country in Europe. It is an island state and has a history of colonisation. Its population is only marginally smaller than ours. We top the half a million, they are just under.

The main difference between us and them is the size. Iceland is roughly the same size as Ireland – so definitely there is a sense of space. So, for them keeping a social distance of two metres (roughly same length as a Smart car) is not a 30cm-ruler-distance like here (go to a supermarket and you’ll know what I mean!).

There’s another difference: Iceland is tackling the coronavirus differently. They thought, “Hey! We’re a small island, why don’t we use that to our advantage?” And so, they started carrying out large-scale testing among the public, whether they displayed symptoms of the disease or not.

Clearly their swab tests are different to ours. Because back in February, after my daughter had been on a trip to northern Italy, I phoned the health department and asked if she could be tested and I was told, no, if she did not have symptoms, the result of the swab would still be negative.

So does this mean that Iceland have a more advanced swabbing system? They must, because they managed to identify symptom-free people with the virus, who were told to quarantine immediately, and so they’re stopping the spread from way before.

Iceland have so far tested a higher proportion of its citizens than anywhere else in the world, and at the time of writing, they have 588 confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

Ah, you may say, that’s more than us – sure, but keep in mind they’re testing everyone – we’re not. Which means that those 588 Icelanders plus their nearest and dearest are in quarantine; a total of about 7,000 people locked inside and not spreading. No wonder then, that Iceland has one of the smallest rises in newly diagnosed infections across Europe.

We could have had all of the country tested not once, but twice over. Malta could have been a sample test case of how to beat this deadly virus

Their form of battle is clearly working.

So why aren’t we doing the same thing? I have no symptoms, but maybe I have this virus and I’m going to the supermarket to get supplies and the person behind me in the queue is only 30cm away.

Why can’t I be tested? Why can’t my friend battling cancer be tested instead of being told to wait? Why can’t we all be tested?

Surely, we have the means seeing as we have – trumpet, trumpet – a record surplus. This money, let us remember, belongs to us citizens and not the personal kitty of the government.

It seems that instead of investing in testing kits we’re going to use the money to build a prefabricated hospital to cater for the pandemic. We want our Chinese Wuhan moment – but with a twist. Wuhan built a prefabricated hospital for 1,000 patients in nine days. Our health ministry wants to build one for 90 patients in 60 days. Which means the żigarella of this prefabricated hospital will be cut, at the very earliest, in June.

Another possibility is the refurbishment of that long-de­relict hospital, St Philip’s – a proposal which the owner always wheels out at every opportunity – which again won’t be ready before June.

But what I cannot understand is: why do we need another hospital if we already have another three apart from Mater Dei? Why are we sidelining St Luke’s, Karin Grech and the Gozo General hospitals? What about them?

Well, they are not run by the government but by a private entity called Steward Health Care.

As taxpayers, we are paying €70 million per year for 30 years – that’s €2 trillion (!) – to Steward Health Care (after we sold them all of the three hospitals’ equipment for €1!). In return, they were meant to invest €200 million to increase beds and refurbish the hospitals – but clearly none of that happened, which is why now they cannot be used as equipped pandemic centres.

Not only that, but it’s been reported that barely a fortnight after he stepped down, former prime minister Joseph Muscat joined a Steward Health Care dele­gation and lobbied his successor Robert Abela to give more funds to this private company.

This pandemic has brought everything to a standstill here in Malta, everything except corruption. We’re throwing money at Steward Health Care, which does not care one iota about our healthcare but aims at fattening some players’ pockets – namely Muscat, Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri. They must be wringing their hands with glee that this virus created such a surreal but ideal diversion for their illicit corrupt money-making schemes.

With all those millions we could have done what Iceland is doing. Scratch that, we could have had all of the country tested not once, but twice over. Malta could have been a sample test case of how to beat this deadly virus.

And my friend would not have had to be exposed, and then told to wait for fate to strike.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
twitter: @krischetcuti

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