Zammit Clapp should be in business by June – minister

Patients needing rehabilitation were expected to be transferred to Zammit Clapp Hospital by June, Health Ministry Joseph Cassar said yesterday.

“The projected date is June,” Dr Cassar said when asked when he expected the St Julians hospital would start accepting patients.

The government plans to re-open Zammit Clapp Hospital, which has been closed for the past months, to free up beds at Mater Dei Hospital.

The former Blue Sisters Hospital would provide 100 beds for people who need long-term care, freeing up needed space at Mater Dei, which in recent weeks faced yet another bed-shortage crisis.

The government has been blaming these crises on a lack of beds for rehabilitation and so-called social cases – patients, most of them elderly, who would be waiting to be moved to other institutions, like old people’s homes.

The ministry is also planning to have 60 more beds at the Karin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital.

Zammit Clapp had originally been earmarked as an oncology hospital, taking over the role of Boffa Hospital, but the government later decided to build a new oncology centre on the grounds of Mater Dei.

Last May, the last remaining patients were transferred from Zammit Clapp to Karin Grech so the former could be transformed into an old people’s home.