Mater Dei Hospital is facing a shortage of coronary stents after a supply contract was cancelled because they became cheaper in the 10 months it took to adjudicate the tender.
The tender for 1,600 coronary stents costing more than €1.4 million was awarded to four companies on April 23 at an average price of €864.32 per stent, supplied by a consortium of importers.
But the contract for the potentially life-saving wire mesh tubes was cancelled on May 5, more than 10 months since the call for tenders closed at the end of June last year.
The decision came after Finance Minister Tonio Fenech was informed that, in the intervening period, the average price per stent dropped by about €160.
"Due to the rapid development of these stents, their prices had dropped drastically over the past six months," a Finance Ministry spokesman said, adding that the latest averaging prices hovered at about €700 per stent, 24 per cent less than the bidding price of the batch of 1,600.
"In the circumstances, the minister asked the Director of Contracts to look into the matter and it was decided to cancel the tender and start the process of reissuing a new call," the spokesman said.
He blamed the delay on issuing this particular tender on the "excessive length taken by the evaluation committee" appointed by the government's Pharmaceutical Services Department to study the technical aspects of the tender.
The situation has left the hospital with a shortage of stents, which are inserted in narrow arteries after the arteries are opened through an angioplasty.
When The Sunday Times broke the story this week, Health Minister Joe Cassar said the hospital's reserve of stents was being kept for urgent cases only while about 300 patients were waiting for the procedure.
The situation was compounded by a shortage of nurses and ECG technicians, which means that Mater Dei's two angiosuites were working at half their capacity.
Dr Cassar said stents, in small numbers, would continue to be purchased through direct order to counter for the shortage. He said a new direct order was expected to be issued in the coming days to buy enough stents to run a normal service, including elective procedures.
In the meantime, the Health Department has been instructed to reissue the tender to ensure this was adjudicated within a shorter timeframe, the Finance Ministry spokesman said.
Dr Cassar said he would be insisting that this happened as soon as possible. "If possible, today before tomorrow and it is adjudicated quickly," he said, adding that, however, the legally-established timeframes had to be respected.