American expatriate in Malta finds free health care but misses digital patient portal

Mariska Breland, an American co‑founder of The Neuro Studio, moved to Malta seeking free health care and recounts her first visit to a local general practitioner.

She describes a modest clinic with six chairs, an old laptop running a Y2K‑era Windows, and a manual lab ordering process that uses a resident number to track services that cost about a quarter of U.S. per‑person spending while life expectancy is roughly five years higher.

While appreciative of the low cost, Breland misses the digital patient portal she was used to in the United States and notes Malta’s high adult obesity rates, highlighting that the system has both advantages and shortcomings.