Family Affairs and Social Solidarity Minister Michael Farrugia told Parliament that when he was Minister for Health in 1996-98, he committed a “cardinal mistake transferring elderly patients to St Vincent de Paul Hospital only from St Luke’s Hospital to make more beds available in the latter.

For every 100 patients transferred to SVDP, 200 had asked to be admitted to St Luke’s because word had got around that if one wanted to enter an old people’s home, one needed to be in hospital first.

The minister was answering PQs by Claudio Grech (PN), who had spotted discrepancies between figures given by Dr Farrugia of patients transferred to SVDP from Mater Dei and Karen Grech Hospitals and taken in from the community.

He asked if there were still a number of vacant beds at SVDP and if more priority should be given to patients from Mater Dei.

Dr Farrugia said these vacancies were intentional and in agreement with the union to make available beds for overflow from the two hospitals in the winter months, during which more beds were traditionally in hospital.

This was especially so because this winter the flu shot had not worked as well as expected. The number of extra beds at SVDP traditionally went back to normal at the end of winter.

The number of SVDP inmates passing away had to be factored in. Logistics currently dictated balancing SVDP entrants from Mater Dei, Karen Grech and the community. This had been the subject of talks with colleagues and MDH administrators.