Nationalist shadow health minister Claudette Buttigieg yesterday dodged questions about her claims that an 83-year-old woman died in a hospital corridor where equipment needed to save her was not available.

Asked for evidence to substantiate her claim, Ms Buttigieg challenged Health Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne to invite journalists and the Opposition to inspect the facilities in the corridor in question. The corridor was converted into a makeshift ward due to seasonal overcrowding.

Her claim had already been denied by Mater Dei Hospital CEO Ivan Falzon, who said that, though not as comfortable as a normal ward, the corridor in question was modified to be able to take patients and had all the equipment needed.

In a statement on Thursday, Dr Fearne quoted relatives of the deceased saying hospital staff had done their utmost to save the woman’s life using the necessary equipment.

Times of Malta sought to contact the relatives directly while a request relayed to them via the parliamentary secretariat was turned down, with a spokesman for Dr Fearne saying the family asked not to be involved in the political controversy.

Ms Buttigieg was also asked whether the PN had consulted with the relatives of the elderly woman before going public. But she skirted these questions and instead hurled further criticism at the government.

“Unfortunately, to date, Dr Fearne has gone shy of answering my questions and all he did was to issue a press release quoting members of the family and not himself,” Ms Buttigieg said.

“It is shameful that the politician responsible for the health sector in Malta uses members of the family of a person who has just died just to score political points,” she added.

Ms Buttigieg said that if Dr Fearne wanted to prove his point that the only items missing in the corridor were television sets and telephones, he should have invited journalists and the Opposition to tour the place.

She added that Labour’s road map for the health sector seemed to have vanished soon after the election, saying the government’s priority was to limit information.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.