Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia has set up two boards at the hospital to examine the shortcomings highlighted in the Dalli report and then ask the police or Auditor General to conduct any warranted investigations.
Speaking in Parliament during question time, he repeatedly said the report reflected John Dalli’s thinking and this was not necessarily shared by the government.
The report, he said, looked solely at Mater Dei Hospital while the government was working on a plan for the whole health sector.
“The health sector will continue to be free, timely and of top quality,” Dr Farrugia pledged.
He rebutted Opposition spokesman Claudio Grech’s suggestion that people’s self-referral to hospital should no longer be accepted.
The health sector will continue to be free, timely and of top quality
He said one of his first steps on taking office had been to study the Johns Hopkins report of 2011, which the Nationalist government had never followed up on.
Mr Grech asked what the minister would be doing to work towards a consensus on health policy after important stakeholders had remarked that the Dalli report was confrontational.
Dr Farrugia said he was on no collision course with the four trade unions involved.He had met all of them and they had all agreed on the way forward on the Emergency Department.
To another question by Mr Grech, he said both sides of the House were agreed on a political hands-off and the regulation, operation and political frameworks would be kept separate.
A committee would look into a possible restructuring of the Foundation for Medical Services and Mr Grech would be consulted on greater accountability.
Mr Grech asked if a number of recommendations in the Johns Hopkins study could be fast-tracked before the working group started to tackle procurement and inventory.
Dr Farrugia said procurement and inventory, including out-of-stock medicines, had already started being worked on and was reaping results. The full migration of all medicines to a single warehouse at San Ġwann would be complete by the end of the year at a saving of €1 million in annual rent.
A system of pay-per-use would mean there would be no over-stocking. Use of the hospital’s own MRI equipment in the twilight hours (early morning and evening) by the hospital’s own technicians had already brought costs down to €90 from the €300 under the public-private partnership.
There was a chance that the oncology hospital would be ready on time.
But it would not be able to function because of problems with connecting the electrical ring with Mater Dei Hospital, the minister said.