The agreement to use St Philip’s Hospital revealed the Government’s lack of strategy in the health sector and its “electoral frenzy”, the Labour Party’s spokeswoman for health said yesterday.

Fifteen years after Mater Dei Hospital was built at a cost of €600 million, which was meant to serve the needs of future generations, the Government felt the need to acquire another hospital, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca said. This was a “certificate of failure” for GonziPN.

Through the arrangement, St Philip’s will be leased to the Government for €825,000 per year for eight years with an option to buy after the third year. The hospital’s purchase value after three years has been calculated on the final negotiated price of €12.4 million.

St Philips Hospital has 110 beds and the Government wants to eventually increase its capacity to 275 beds to make good for the shortfall at Mater Dei.

Ms Coleiro Preca said Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had said in Parliament in 2004 that he had reached an agreement with the Mater Dei contractor who would be paid another €6 million for a rehabilitation hospital and an oncology clinic.

That and more was paid and yet the hospital and clinic were not built, she said.

Instead the Government had to reopen Karen Grech Hospital for rehabilitation.

The Health Ministry replied that it was a shame the Opposition was against another initiative that favoured patients. The Opposition was objecting to another agreement with the private sector from which patients would benefit, the ministry said.

Everything indicated that the Opposition did not understand the difference between St Philip’s Hospital, which would be used for rehabilitation, and Mater Dei, which was an acute hospital.

It also denied that any works that had been paid for were not carried out.

Debono motion to halt acquisition

Nationalist MP Franco Debono last night presented a motion in Parliament calling for the acquisition of St Philip’s Hospital by the government to be halted until the whole process is examined by the Auditor General or the Public Accounts Committee.

He complains in the motion that the House was not informed about the acquisition which, he points out, was taking place just four years after the government opened Mater Dei Hospital.

The process, so close to a general election, was raising certain doubts which needed to be addressed.

The motion also says that the fact that the Health Ministry has long been subject to strong criticism for its mismanagement and lack of vision further underlines the need for parliamentary scrutiny.