Junior minister’s ‘waiver’ is wrong, say readers in online poll

Choose political or medical career, majority in MaltaToday.com.mt poll say about Franco Mercieca

25 April 2013, 12:00am
by Staff Reporter

2 min read

Parliamentary secretary Franco Mercieca

Franco Mercieca should not be allowed to retain his ministerial post if he wants to continue his private practice, MaltaToday.com.mt respondents to an online poll believe.

A majority of readers and respondents to our online non-scientific poll - 973 or 47% - said the ministes' code of ethics was equal for all ministers and that Mercieca, parliamentary secretary for the righst of the disabled and care of the elderly, should choose between his political role or his career as an ophthalmic surgeon.

Another 863, or 42%, believe Mercieca should keep benefiting from the Prime Minister's limited waiver to allow him to carry out work at Mater Dei Hospital on Sunday, and any private medical care in his specialised field of corneal surgery.

A smaller percentage, 11% (227) said that the Code of Ethics should be updated instead of having the prime minister arbitrarily dispensing waivers to ministers.

Mercieca has said a limited waiver from the Prime Minister for him to perform private operations in his specialised field of corneal surgery, will only be transitional and not long-term.

"With time, new specialists will graduate and migrate here with practice in corneal surgery, and I will be able to pass on my experience to them," the junior minister for the rights of the disabled and elderly care, said. "To me the most important thing is for patients to have the best care," Mercieca said on breakfast show TVAM earlier this week.

"I won't take on new cases, unless they are within my limited expertise. I won't take patients who can be tended to by other specialists. But I do have a duty towards patients - I am a doctor first and foremost."

The limited waiver Joseph Muscat gave Mercieca was dubbed as 'scandalous' by Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi. "Muscat had no power, no authority to give such a waiver. The Code of Ethics does not permit any waiver. This betrays Muscat's own criticism of the salary increase for ministers which was guised as some form of pretence of good governance," Azzopardi said.

Lawrence Gonzi and his Cabinet increased ministerial salaries by €500 a week in May 2008 in a decision that went unpublicised. The public outrage led to ministers refunding €17,000 of their accumulated salaries in 2011, before the increase was officially retracted in January 2012 the day Gonzi announced a cabinet reshuffle.

The code of ethics for ministers prohibits them from taking on private work and they must take steps to divest themselves from their commercial interests.

Mercieca claimed he was unable to "just switch off" from his private practice, and that he has been reducing his medical workload ever since he took the decision to run for Parliament two years ago.

While Mercieca claims his ophthalmological skills are in short supply, head of department Thomas Fenech has played down this claim: both men have previously been at loggerheads over a botched selection exercise for new surgeons at Mater Dei, which later was elevated into a short-lived tiff between the PN and the PL.

More from Staff Reporter

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dgriscti: the hypocrisy comes from Mr Fenech who only has other motives for his statement since Mr Mercieca was the one who uncovered his misdoings during the specialists selection process... If Mr Fenech cared for the dept and his patients as much as Mr Mercieca the Opth department would not be in the mess it is today. You always forget to mention that Mr Fenech is the husband of Ann Fenech one of the causes of the PN failure and who is now tasked to gather information on why they had this gigantic defeat in the elections. Unfortunately now the PN sees it good to play with people's health. Im pretty sure that you were lucky enough not to have needed the use of this department unfortunately I had to, and suffered the consequences of the mismanagement and that is why I speak this way. This is not about politics.

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Most certainly these "readers" do not know DR.Franco Mercieca, are not his patients and have not experienced him at all! They ought to be his "patients" since they are not seeing right and are BLINDED by political passion.... and not over the electoral defeat of their Party and GonziPN!

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@dgriscti Where were you before 9th March? What would you say if you or a member of you closest family needed the expertise of Dr. Mercieca today? Would you expect Dr. Mercieca to refuse him/her the intervention needed because he is now a junior minister. He is working on his day of rest for God's sake and he is not getting paid for his excellent service to his patients irrespective of their political colour.

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Sander and Accountability, what on earth are you on about? The code of ethics is something that was agreed to by one and all, and it should apply to mone and all, so what you are saying is completely FALSE and is pure emotional sycophantism. Ever heard of 'Two wrongs do not make a right'? I guess not, because you seem t live under the illusion that if the PN did something that was wrong, than the PL have a right to do it and the PN and everyone else should not dare challenge it. Impressive....exactly what Muscat promosed before the elections....NOT!

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Now Dr. Mercieca seems even willing to forgo precious time with his own family on Sundays. Perhaps you are doing all this for your family! Let us stop here now. Decide between PS or career. You cannot do all three, PS, eye surgeon and family. It's getting ridiculous by the hour.

Paul Sammut •

Here we go again. Another unscientific poll, similar to what we had last week. Once again it is worthless. It is neither Vi nor Va and worse still possibly completely misleading. One hopes that we are not going to be regaled by such trash on a weekly bases. One expects much better from MT.

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The Code of Ethics was drawn up by the PN, for the PN, broken thousands of times (openly or otherwise) by the PN, trampled asunder by the PN and now these hypocrites want to impose their defunct code on the PL Movement. To hell to them. The PN has been sent to oblivion because of their arrogance, deceit, lies, corruption, exorbitant living from public funds, imperialistic and holier than thou attitudes. They should let honest, hard working and professional people, especially medical specialists, get on with their honest jobs or forever be ignored.

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As far as I am concerned, doctors have the most caring profession in the world. We need all the good doctors we can have. No playing around with the health of the people. If he can do both, is up to him. But he should not be stopped from giving this divine service to the people. In a lawyer's case, it is a different story. God bless all the doctors and people in medicine. We are nothing without them. They are never paid enough for saving human lives.

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John Micallef, the Times online poll, for which over 15,000 responded, says that 63% are against him practicing. And that is the way it should be. He has to choose one or the other. We now know, from the head of Opthalmology that it is not true that he is indispensable or anything of the sort, so besides him breaching the code of ethics which the Prime Minsiter had nor right to waive, we also know that he more or less said an inaccuracy because he tried to give the impression that without him all would stop. Had this happened two months ago Joseph Muscat and all the media would have hounded Gonzi and the PN government and called it an abuse etc etc....and rightly so. Now it seems that standards have changed and what is good for the goose is NOT good for the gander. This is hypocricy....pure and simple, and no emotional verbal gymnastics by the Prime Minister and Mercieca can change that, no matter how much they try to muddy the waters by linking it to the upcoming PN leadership contest and the cliche 'same old divisive PN'....which is now losing its appeal and it showing up certain PL and JM traits that the electorate had not seen before March 9th.

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Both surveys by the Times and by Maltatoday speak loud and clear. A huge majority believe it is not acceptable for Mercieca to be allowed to work privately part time, and rightly so. He has to choose and cannot expect to do as he pleases. Up till a few weeks ago, if the same happened under the PN government, Joseph Muscat cried foul and lambasted the government as arrogant etc, and he was right! Public opinion was also behind him in that respect, and rightly so. Is Muscat now giving us the message that those ethical sdandards only apply to the PN and that he and the PL can do as they please? Is that the new style he promised the nation? I'm afraid that that is not on, and the PN and the meduia are right to highlight it, because it stinks of hypocrisy, inconsitency and double standards. hardly the yardstick we had been promised before March 9th!

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But doesn't the Ministerial code of ethics lay down that ministers and parl. secretaries are both FULL TIME jobs? So how come in the last years several NP (and LP) ministers and parl. secs were allowed to keep on lecturing at University?

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MT I think you got it wrong since 11% say to change the code so that he can practice... 42% + 11% is the majority. Mr Mercieca has the right to choose politics but at the same time should be able to care for the needy. Another option you forgot to mention is if people agree that he can perform surgery on Sundays at the public hospital for free... instead of public practice. in MD I know through experience (unfortunately) that the other doctors threat patients like a production line while Mr Mercieca really cares. I had to do 2 extra operations after a surgery since a consultant (not Mr Mercieca) forgot to do post treatment.

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