Shadow Health Minister Denies Being Investigated Over Sick Leave Fraud But Confirms Contact By Medical Council
Shadow health minister Stephen Spiteri has denied he is being investigated by the Malta Medical Council over a Lovin Malta story revealing he had been selling medical certificates without even seeing his patients.
“I am not being investigated. I have been contacted by the Medical Council, and I told them I will give them a response at a later date,” he said, when confronted at a press conference this morning. “I repeat that I deny the story completely.”
This contradicts the Medical Council’s earlier statement suggesting it will be investigating the alleged racket. The investigation by law can take up to two years.
The Medical Council has so far ignored this website’s request for an update on the case.
Lovin Malta last month exposed a racket of medical certificates being signed and sold at Brown’s Pharmacy in Kalkara, where Spiteri is the resident doctor. This website heard several phone calls to this pharmacy by fictitious patients wanting Spiteri to sign their medical certificates without visiting them. In all the phone calls, the ‘patients’ were given the green light to pick up their certificates the next day.
After hearing these phonecalls, Lovin Malta posed as a patient, called the pharmacy and published the recording.
“Just come here and we’ll write a paper for him with your details, you pay €5 and then you come for it at about 7pm, tomorrow though, because he won’t be here,” the pharmacy’s receptionist said. Asked what time Spiteri attended the pharmacy, Lovin Malta was told: “At 10am but he never finishes them at that time because he’ll have many [to sign].”
However, Spiteri appears to have changed this dubious practice significantly since then. Posing as a patient, Lovin Malta visited Brown’s Pharmacy today to give the receptionist details that she would hand over to Spiteri to prepare a medical certificate.
Instead, the receptionist added our name to a list of people and told us to come back in the afternoon when Spiteri would be at the pharmacy.
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