Duncan Azzopardi from Msida is correct to state that "The way the (new) hospital is structured makes it impossible to adopt the system of putting patients in the corridor" (July 24). At Mater Dei, this practice will simply be discontinued.

Mr Azzopardi is however incorrect in a number of his conclusions.

Firstly, it is, at best, an incomplete picture to say that Mater Dei Hospital has fewer beds than St Luke's. The number of beds available at Mater Dei is an issue that needs to be looked at from a wider context.

Like St Luke's Hospital, Mater Dei is a general acute hospital which effectively means it focuses on acute cases. The problems of over crowding at St Luke's, which give rise to patients placed in corridors, arise mainly from social and long-term rehabilitation cases occupying bed spaces, intended for acute cases, for very long periods of time. Unlike the current practice at St Luke's Hospital, social and long-term rehabilitation cases will not be admitted to Mater Dei.

So, where will such cases be treated? The government has already announced plans for a new 280-bed rehabilitation facility in Luqa providing enough capacity for rehabilitation cases currently treated at Zammit Clapp Hospital and St Luke's. The services offered at the 60-bed Zammit Clapp Hospital will temporarily move to St Luke's (when Mater Dei is fully functional) for works to start at Zammit Clapp to transform this hospital into an oncology facility with a substantial increase in bed capacity and a new investment in specialised state-of-the art medical equipment. Social cases are being transferred to new wards specifically designed to care for such cases. Jean Antide ward in Attard has recently been refurbished to meet higher standards and the ongoing investment programme at St Vincent de Paule has reached Lm12 million.

This is all in line with the government's plan to modernise the free healthcare services offered from our hospitals. At Mater Dei there will be a higher turnover of patients since it is envisaged that patients will occupy less bednights when compared to the current situation at St Luke's Hospital due to the reasons mentioned above.

With regard to educational facilities, Mr Azzopardi can rest assured that the Medical School and the Institute of Health Care have been included in the Mater Dei medical village.

Mr Azzopardi is correct in stating that the signage at Mater Dei is all in English. May I add "so far" to his statement. As already announced, the project team is in the process of installing the Maltese generic signage such as Dhul (entrance), Hrug (exit) and others. The decision to have signage in English was taken due to the fact that it is relatively difficult to translate technical medical terms from English into Maltese. The majority of signage at Mater Dei uses such technical terms. Moreover, one had also to keep in mind that Mater Dei is the only general acute hospital in Malta used by Maltese and foreigners alike.

Finally, I would like to thank Mr Azzopardi for his observations on Mater Dei Hospital.