Victory Day Lifelines: Which Malta Pharmacies Are Open Today (Sept 8) and Why It Matters

Pharmacies open today – September 8, 2025

The first Monday after the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady is traditionally a day when Malta exhales. The village marches are over, the ħobż biż-żejt has been devoured, and the last petard has echoed off honey-coloured limestone. Yet life must go on. This morning, as the 5:30 a.m. ferry from Għawdex glides into Valletta’s Grand Harbour, dozens of commuters are already scrolling through the Yellow Pages (or, more likely, the Gov.mt pharmacy roster) to see which chemists are open on this public holiday.

By 7:00 a.m., the sliding doors of Birkirkara’s St. Joseph Pharmacy hum open. Manager Maria Camilleri, balancing a paper cup of Kinnie and a pastizz in one hand, switches on the neon green cross that has guided locals since 1978. “Today is not about profit,” she says, wiping crumbs from her floral blouse. “It’s about continuity. Someone’s nanna will run out of warfarin, a child will scrape a knee at Għadira Bay, and tourists will misplace their insulin. We’re the quiet guardians of an island that never truly sleeps.”

Malta’s 210 community pharmacies take turns providing holiday cover under a rota managed by the Malta Chamber of Pharmacists. September 8—Victory Day and a national feast—presents a unique puzzle: three village festas (Senglea, Naxxar and Mellieħa) overlap with the final exodus of summer visitors. The Chamber’s executive director, Dr. Graziella Attard, explains that this year twenty-one pharmacies volunteered to stay open, double the usual holiday roster. “We mapped ferry routes, festa processions and even beach car-park capacity,” she laughs, pointing to a colour-coded spreadsheet that looks more like a military campaign than healthcare logistics.

In Senglea, where brass bands will later parade the statue of Maria Bambina through streets still smelling of yesterday’s candle wax, St. Philip’s Pharmacy has transformed its doorway into a miniature field clinic. Pharmacist Karl Spiteri and his teenage son Luke—dressed in the green sash of the St. Joseph Corps—are handing out free hydration salts to flag-bearers rehearsing in 30-degree heat. “It’s a family tradition,” Karl shrugs. “My father opened on Victory Days, I do it, and Luke will probably do it too. The feast is prayer, yes, but also perseverance.”

Meanwhile, in Mellieħa, the pharmacy inside the parish square is doubling as a lost-and-found. A Swedish backpacker, sunburnt and sheepish, is reunited with his EpiPen thanks to a vigilant shop assistant who recognised the Stockholm address on the prescription label. Behind him, an elderly Maltese man buys a single blister of Panadol Actifast and quietly slips €5 into the donation box for Puttinu Cares. “We raised €3,240 during last night’s fireworks alone,” whispers assistant manager Ritienne Borg. “People want to give back when they feel looked after.”

Tourism operators have noticed. Simon Pace, who runs hop-on-hop-off buses, says that “pharmacy access” has quietly climbed into TripAdvisor’s top-ten Malta keywords. “Visitors used to ask about beaches and temples. Now they ask, ‘What if my child spikes a fever on a Sunday?’ Our drivers are trained to point out the nearest open chemist. It’s become part of the Maltese welcome.”

Back in Valletta, the ornate wooden shelves of the 19th-century Savona Pharmacy are glowing under chandeliers. Pharmacist Etienne Bezzina is dispensing antihistamines to a British couple whose son reacted to jellyfish stings at St. Peter’s Pool. “We dispense stories as much as medicine,” Etienne muses. “Every prescription is a thread in the Maltese tapestry: a festa, a ferry ride, a grandmother’s remedy passed down through Arabic, Sicilian and English words.”

By dusk, the last pharmacy shutters will close, the festa confetti will carpet the streets, and tomorrow the island will return to its weekday rhythm. But tonight, somewhere in a quiet side-street, a green neon cross will still burn—reminding Malta that even on its most sacred holidays, care is never off-duty.