The Sickness/Health Care function consists of: (i) cash benefits temporarily replacing one’s income during unemployment periods caused by sickness or injury, and (ii) health care provided in the framework of social protection.
Salient Points
Overview: 2024
One third of social outlay went towards Sickness/Health care benefits (€1,024.8 million).
A €75.1 million increase, primarily resulting from higher spending under Hospitals and Other Health Care Facilities (€58.5 million) and Sickness Days – Employers’ Expenditure (€13.9 million).
Social Security Benefits: 2024
In total, €42.8 million was attributed to recipients of sickness type benefits, €1.8 million higher than the previous year.
82.7 per cent of outlay was allocated towards Non-Contributory Sickness Benefits.
A minor drop (68) in claimants, amounting to 35,427 by the end of the year.
Female recipients marginally outnumbered male counterparts, representing 50.3 per cent of the total beneficiaries.
61 beneficiaries for every 1,000 persons residing on the Maltese Islands, receive a sickness type benefit.
Highest and lowest shares of recipients-to-population registered within the Southern Harbour (9.0 per cent) and Northern (4.9 per cent) districts, respectively.
At 141 sickness recipients per 1,000 population, Valletta recorded the largest share by locality, 7.5 times higher than smallest ratio documented in Is-Swieqi (19 recipients per 1,000 population).
Hospitals and Other Health Care Facilities: 2024
Medical care expenditure amounted to €850.7 million, €58.5 million higher than 2023.
Highest increases listed under Mater Dei Hospital (€33.0 million) and Mount Carmel Hospital (€12.0 million). Conversely, spending at Gozo General Hospital fell by €11.1 million.
77,936 hospital admissions during the year, representing a 3.3 per cent in comparison to 2023.
A 4.2 per cent growth in pharmaceutical items dispensed, totalling 3,924,734.
Sickness Days – Employers’ Expenditure: 2024
Employers spent a combined €120.1 million covering sick or injury days taken by their employees, €13.9 million higher than the prior year.
Together, employees took over 1.6 million sick days during 2024, more than 73,000 extra days compared to 2023.
Other schemes: 2024
Funding towards APPOĠĠ health care services rose from €1.3 million in 2023 to €1.7 million in 2024.
A €0.5 million rise in non-profit services aiding persons requiring medical care, reaching €9.5 million.
Tables
Maps
Methodological Notes
Social Security Benefits
1. Expenditure towards social security benefits is collected through the Treasury’s Corporate Financial Management Solution (CFMS).
2. Beneficiaries’ data is obtained from the Department of Social Security’s (DSS) Unique Beneficiaries Report.
3. As beneficiaries may be in receipt of multiple benefits simultaneously, aggregates may not necessarily be equivalent to the sum of the corresponding benefits as these recipients will only be counted once.
4. Persons in receipt of any form of social assistance or Leprosy Assistance are also eligible to receive the special weekly bonus of €4.66 per week and the statutory bonus of €135.10 payable every six months. As bonus payments are solely provided as aggregates, the proportion allocated to claimants of these benefits is based on their corresponding outlay:
Sickness Days – Employers’ Expenditure
5. Employees first three days of sick leave are covered by their employer. From the fourth day onwards, the Sickness Benefit comes into effect and is paid by the Department of Social Security (DSS). The employees’ full salary will continue to be paid either completely by the employer or split between the employer and the DSS.
6. As no official data reflecting sick leave payments is presently available, estimates are instead compiled taking into consideration the annual number of sick or injury hours per capita extracted from the NSO’s Labour Cost Survey (LCS). Sick/injury hours per capita are calculated separately for full-time (FT) and part-time (PT) employment. One caveat to note is that the LCS targets enterprises with at least 10 employees, hence resulting in a possible overestimation of sick leave entitlement for smaller workplaces as the same conditions are applied.
7. The LCS is collected every four years. To compensate, linear interpolation was conducted to estimate the comparative sick or injury hours per capita for the years in between. Furthermore, the TREND function was used to project the sickness hours taken for reference years coming after the latest LCS data collection.
8. Sickness hours were converted to days by assuming FT employees work a typical 8-hour day while PT employees work 4 hours. FT results are then multiplied with the corresponding average daily wages, computed by dividing the compensation of employees, as published in the NSO’s GDP News Release, with the annual employment totals. PT spending was estimated using the same approach.
9. The total spending calculated in note 8 is treated for double counting, by deducting the comparative expenses for both the Injury and Sickness Benefits (as reported under the Social Security Contributory Benefits Scheme) and injury leave (provided by the DSS). The remaining expenditure represents the employer’s portion of sick leave payments.
10. Similarly, the first three days of injury leave are covered by the employer. Employees injured as a direct result of performing their official duties are entitled to a maximum 12 months of injury leave on full pay, deducting the injury benefit payable through the Social Security Act. Administrative sources from the DSS provide data covering payments made by the employer during periods of injury leave.
APPOĠĠ
11. Financial statements documented by the Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS) are used to collect annual expenses for Aġenzija Appoġġ.
12. Due to different target groups, social services provided by Appoġġ are split between multiple functions (Sickness, Disability, Family/Children and Social Exclusion n.e.c.). As outlay is only available as an aggregate, a pre-established ratio calculated from previous years is applied to allocate the total expenditure among the respective functions.
Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households
13. Among others, non-profit services under the Sickness/Health care function involve support for people suffering from a serious, life-threatening illness, and community care for persons struggling with mental health issues.
