Health services would remain free for everyone and the government would continue working to strengthen the economy to be able to finance social benefits and health care, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi insisted yesterday.

“I am determined to keep doing this till my very last drop of energy,” Dr Gonzi said in reaction to comments by Mater Dei Hospital’s new CEO, Joseph Caruana.

In an interview with The Sunday Times yesterday, Mr Caruana said he believed that, from a business point of view, the provision of free health services was “definitely not sustainable”.

Reacting to Mr Caruana’s comments, Dr Gonzi said his philosophy, and that of the Nationalist Party he headed, had always been that healthcare was not a business.

“We have always believed that the health services should be free for everyone... The government will keep doing its best... to invest our money in people’s health,” he said during an interview on Radio 101, the PN’s radio station.

Speaking during a Labour Party activity yesterday, Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat said Mr Caruana’s comments led him to suspect that the Nationalist government would impose health care fees and pledged this would not happen under a Labour government.

Free health care was a political hot potato ahead of the last general election when Labour accused the Nationalist government of planning to impose fees on health services in the wake of a Cabinet report. But the government insisted the report was taken out of context and maintained health care would remain free.

In his interview, Mr Caruana said the country could not continue pumping money in an “unlimited manner” and the situation had to be addressed soonest.

It costs about €500,000 a day to run Mater Dei but this will increase with advances in medicine, longer life expectancy and the change in biomedical engineering that means updating hospital equipment and investing in training.

Health Minister Joseph Cassar stressed that “health is not a business” but a social aspect of life and the government would do its utmost to sustain it.

In a statement yesterday Mr Caruana clarified – as had been noted in the interview carried by The Sunday Times – that he was speaking strictly from a business perspective.

“When I was approached to take the post of CEO... Minister Cassar made it very clear to me that this government’s policy is to keep health services free. I am implementing this policy,” he said, adding that he was “not a policymaker”.

His clarification came after Dr Muscat said at a political activity at the Għaxaq PL club he “suspected” health care would no longer remain free if the Nationalist government was elected again.

“If I have a CEO that says free health is not sustainable and this vision clashes with the government’s then there is an enormous strategic problem if they employed someone who doesn’t share their vision,” he said.

“If, as I suspect, the government agrees with him... then we have a situation where the government, if re-elected, will make health care available against payment,” he added.

Dr Muscat said he believed free health care could be sustainable under a “serious leadership” and emphasised, giving his “solemn word”, that it would always remain free under a Labour government.

He criticised the delay in appointing a financial controller for the hospital. “There needs to be accountability and responsibility, especially in hospital and, yet, they only appointed a financial controller a few months ago,” he said.

The Health Ministry accused Dr Muscat of being “dishonest” because he focused on a few words Mr Caruana had said but ignored Dr Cassar’s declaration that health care would remain free.

The PN also insisted health care was never a business and ought to remain free.