An internal inquiry ordered last year into claims that two Gozitan cancer patients died from chemotherapy toxicity more than a decade ago was never carried out due to “lack of information” and “lapse of time”, a Health Ministry spokesman said.

Last September, then health minister Joseph Cassar had ordered the internal inquiry following the resignation of the head of Mater Dei Hospital’s oncology department, Stephen Brincat.

Dr Brincat had said he resigned beca-use the Nationalist Government was ignoring his advice on essential issues, including the introduction of chemotherapy in Gozo. He was against introducing it unless there was the necessary expertise to administer the service.

Prof. Brincat said that, in the past, patients in Gozo had died of chemotherapy toxicity – a side effect of the treatment – because of such lack of expertise.

It later emerged he was talking about two patients who died “more than 15 years ago”.

One year after the inquiry was launched The Sunday Times of Malta asked about its outcome.

A spokesman for the Health Ministry, which now falls under Godfrey Farrugia, said: “The case mentioned was closed on January 22, 2013. No formal inquiry was carried out.”

When asked why, he said this was due to lack of information put forward and the lapse of time.

Contacted yesterday, Dr Cassar said that, while he could not recall the details of the case, he remembered that the main problem was that the “ghost patients” referred to by Prof. Brincat could not be identified.

The Sunday Times of Malta also spoke to Prof. Brincat, who said he did not think there was ever the need for an inquiry. Chemotherapy toxicity was a known risk of chemotherapy and was not the result of negligence.

Case closed due to lack of information and lapse of time

“What one doesn’t accept is increasing that risk by trying to give a service when the absolute precautions are not in place.

“The fact of the matter is that [chemotherapy in Gozo] was not set up in the seven months of the previous [Nationalist] government and it has not been set up yet.

“So, clearly, it’s not something that can be done in a month,” he said.

In June the health minister said that chemotherapy in Gozo will start being offered by the end of this year.

Currently, it is not offered at the Gozo General Hospital and cancer patients have to travel to Malta each time they need the life-saving treatment.