Anyone requiring emergency treatment from next Sunday morning must go to Mater Dei hospital as the Casualty Department will be moving at 6 a.m.

Although patients who would already been have registered at St Luke's Accident and Emergency Department will still be treated at the old hospital, any new cases are being asked to go to Mater Dei.

Moreover, any patients seen at St Luke's who need to be admitted to hospital will be transferred to Mater Dei once it is safe for them to be moved.

Despite the fact that the emergency department at St Luke's will be closed to new patients from 6 a.m., any serious cases that turn up there by mistake will still be treated, a spokesman for the new hospital said.

The Accident and Emergency Department at St Luke's will only remain operational until all patients who registered there before 6 a.m. are seen and treated.

Operating theatres at St Luke's will be used for emergency surgery for those patients admitted before 6 a.m. Once the Casualty Department moves, emergency surgery will start taking place at Mater Dei.

Accident and Emergency will be one of the last departments to move to the new hospital, although the migration will continue until Wednesday of next week.

Two surgical and two medical wards will move to the new hospital tomorrow. Cardiac medical patients will be transferred to Mater Dei while half of the renal patients will be using the facilities at the new hospital for the first time.

Day surgeries - including endoscopies, hernia and ophthalmic operations and minor fractures - will start at the new hospital tomorrow. More outpatient clinics, including the Diabetes Clinic, as well as the pharmacy, will also start operating from Tal-Qroqq tomorrow.