The revamped Mosta health centre, inaugurated days before the general election, will open its doors for patients on April 22.

Equipment and files will start being transferred from the Birkirkara health centre and installed over the coming week, a spokesman for the Health Ministry confirmed yesterday.

Despite being inaugurated just four days before the March 9 election, the health centre lacked the basics, including equipment, which either still had to be purchased or which had been moved to the Birkirkara health centre while renovation work was under way.

Only a few couches and stools could be spotted during the inauguration.

Work on the €600,000 transformation at the Mosta centre began at the beginning of the year, and new state-of-the-art equipment was purchased.

It now includes a small operating theatre for minor operations under local anaesthetic as well as a new plaster room.

“The migration has been planned to cause minimal disruption in the delivery of service.  The Mosta Health Centre will be fully functional by April 22 at 7am,” the spokesman said.

He said new Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia inspected the refurbishment work upon taking on his new role “and made sure that the pending works are speeded up, so as to reduce the inconvenience”.

The Mosta Health Centre had initially been planned to open at the beginning of June.

In 2012, there were some 1.6 million visits to health centres around the island.