Specialist doctors’ COVID winter warning: restrictions now or healthcare suffers

Thirteen specialist colleges and medical associations in Malta have called for the re-introduction of further restrictive measures in a bid to allay the COVID-19 pandemic in Malta.

The appeal comes in the wake of an unprecedented eight deaths in 36 hours, as COVID-19 cases entered a three-figure average over the past month.

The colleges, which were not joined by doctors’ union Medical Association of Malta, said the health authorities were facing a crisis which “will only get worse if such restrictions are not increased and effectively enforced.”

“With an increase in community spread, despite the measures which have already been reintroduced, we anticipate a continued increase in hospital admissions, especially with winter around the corner, mirrored by an increase in the fatality rate together with the prospect of a critical care service which is already unable to cope with demand,” said Mark Formosa, president of the College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on behalf of the associations.

“Half-hearted measures will not work. We need drastic action in the short term so that both our health and the economy will begin to recover in the near future.”

Formosa warned that treatment in all spheres that people have come to take for granted, will not be deliverable should the health services be under strain. “Many elective procedures have already been cancelled,” he said.

“Scenes such as those witnessed in Bergamo, Italy in March-April of this year should be avoided at all costs,” he said, referring to the increased deaths from COVID-19 in the north of Italy.

Formosa said the sick and vulnerable were at the most risk of having reduced access to regular medial care.

“We must protect the right of sick, infected persons to have access to proper critical care in order to have a good chance of survival. We must also protect the individuals delivering this highly stressful critical care from emotional burn out. They must be protected in order that the standard of care is maintained at its highest level throughout.

“We must protect the elderly vulnerable and the young immune-compromised so that they can look forward to a life post-COVID-19.”

The statement was signed by the Malta Association of Public Health Medicine, Association of Anaesthetists of Malta, Malta College of Pathologists, Association of Surgeons Malta, Association of Physicians of Malta, Association of Emergency Physicians, Malta College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Malta Paediatric Association, Malta Association of Psychiatry, Malta Association of Dermatology and Venereology, Malta Association of Radiologists and Nuclear Medicine Physicians, Geriatric Medicine Society of Malta, and Malta Association of Ophthalmologists.