Health minister says osteoporosis screening proposal ‘leaked to Labour’

Health minister Joe Cassar has insisted that Labour's proposals on health had been copied off the Nationalist agenda, if not directly lifted from its own proposals.

"Joseph Muscat did not do his homework well," Cassar said, accusing the Labour leader of repeatedly getting it wrong by proposing measures which the PN administration had already introduced or was in the process of.

In a furtive press conference at the Nationalist HQ in Pieta, Cassar said proposals for the government to include the screening for osteoporosis together with its national breast screening programme had been leaked to Labour. "Our plan was to introduce a process where family doctors can recommend their patients to the screening programme."

The health minister said Joseph Muscat's proposals for a new Mental Health Act ignored the fact that a recent law had been passed by both sides of the House in December last year.

"This government is already dispensing medicines to the elderly and other patients in their homes through the Home Help service," Cassar said. "Muscat is not doing his homework well, and he's not proposing anything new."

Earlier today, Labour leader Joseph Muscat justified his stand to finance private hospital operations on NHS waiting lists, saying that a new Labour government was ready to conduct a study on the maximization of human resources capacity to improve public healthcare.

Muscat said a new Labour government would invest €8 million over and above current levels to improve public healthcare, carry out door-to-door transport of medicinals for the elderly over the age of 70 and disabled people, which he tagged at €500,000, and extend the breast screening and osteoporosis screening programmes with follow-up programmes as well as strengthening the fight against diabetes.

"We want people to trust public healthcare and not need to go to Mater Dei Hospital, and therefore relieve pressure from the hospital's current demands," Muscat said.