“”The planned future expansion of the health care service by the government (e g the new Hospital Oncology Centre) is likely to absorb many of the new graduates in health This is likely to increase the size of the bottleneck in the presence of a constant supply of professionals Moreover, as is the case in many EU countries, Malta is confronted with increased demand for such services, due to an ageing population Evidence suggests that the situation has been improving in recent years for doctors as the government adopted a series of measures to stop the outflow of talents and managed to attract foreign students As far as nurses and midwives are concerned, the recent removal of the cap on the number of students admitted to the courses, a shortening of its duration and the improvement of contract conditions (including incentives for those who opt to return) only represent a first step A ” programme together with simplified recruiting practices are being used
