St Philip’s Hospital is to be leased to the Government for €12.4 million for an eight-year term, following years of negotiations.
Hospital owner Frank Portelli said the agreement had been reached although not actually signed, and will see the hospital being “initially” leased for a period of eight years.
The Government said it had the option to buy the 110-bed facility at the end of every year, from the third year (at €11.3 million) up to the eighth year (€9.8 million). The annual lease starts at €825,000.
The arrangement will allow the Ministry of Health to make use of the beds soon. “The decision...was based also on the lower cost it offered to the public purse in developing the originally planned 280-bed rehabilitation facility,” the Government said.
Mr Portelli said: “The Government will have the option to purchase the hospital at a price established today. Moreover, if the Government exercises its option to buy the hospital, a percentage of the rental paid until then would be deducted from the sale price.”
Dr Portelli said valuations of the hospital were made by professional architects and two auditing firms, KPMG and PriceWaterhouseCoopers which were involved in the negotiations of the contract.
He explained that there was a project description statement to increase the hospital’s capacity to 275 beds to solve the bed shortage problem at Mater Dei, which is estimated to lack 240 beds to meet present-day needs.
The hospital is built over 11,000 square metres of land and presently has 70 parking spaces.
Dr Portelli said he believed St Philip’s Hospital was “a five-star hospital” and its facilities would go a long way to addressing the country’s waiting list problem.
He said the hospital could provide MRI scans and four operating theatres which could be used to complement the service given at Mater Dei Hospital, just up the road.
The process to lease the hospital had started in March 2010 when St Philip’s Hospital had issued an expression of interest through Galea, Salomone and Associates inviting expressions of interest.
It called for parties interested in the acquisition of immovable property whether by outright purchase, lease or operation, of “property suitable for various uses such as nursing home, medical clinic, hospital or similar”.
Several interested parties had responded to this expression of interest and the Government was awarded preferred bidder status as the health authorities were planning to increase the current facilities for rehabilitation services.