For the wrong reasons, Mater Dei Hospital is again in the news. This state-of-the-art hospital has been bedevilled by failed time frames and financial overruns. Now, a year after the hospital was officially commissioned in time for the general election, the public is informed that four specialised labs are defective and have, apparently, not yet been used.
These are Biosafety level 3 labs meant to deal with highly infective medical samples and high risk systems such as blood cultures, sputum, cerebrospinal fluid and aspirates. These investigations represent a potentially serious threat to the health and safety of workers.
Such labs have to have very stringent standards and facilities that include equipment, ventilation systems and structural designs so as to ensure that contaminated material can be handled and disposed of safely. Although, as yet not paid for, these laboratories cost the taxpayer millions of euros. Now, it has come to public knowledge that they fell short of the exacting standards required and are being dismantled. Officials of the Health Ministry have been rather parsimonious in providing information.
They admitted that the labs were assessed by hospital laboratory staff together with the Foundation for Medical Services and visiting specialists from Rome's Lazzaro Spallanzani Hospital. The outcome was that the specifications required were found inadequate and that an independent specialist company was called in to have a close look at the situation on the ground.
It seems, though it has not been officially confirmed so far, that Skanska, the contractor entrusted with the hospital's construction, will be held responsible and will have to foot the bill for the overhaul of the labs, although the equipment used by the bacteriology and virology departments can and will be reused. This distressing incident raises various questions that deserve clear answers. One wonders whether throughout this time the hospital could have functioned effectively without the service of such facilities.
Are there any other Biosafety level 3 facilities at the new hospital? Was this high risk work farmed out to outside labs? One also questions whether, locally, private labs are up to scratch to handle such high risk material.
Can the health authorities guarantee that operators and/or members of the general hospital population were not exposed to any unacceptable risk?
It bears reminding that Malta's record with cross infection has already been called into question by EU sponsored surveys.
Such a state of affairs comes as another blow to public confidence that is sick and tired of such crass incompetence and largesse with tax payers' money. When one considers the huge capital and current expenditure involved in getting this hospital off the ground and running, the public rightly expects that such gross mismanagement should have been avoided.
The authorities have to come clean on this matter and give a detailed account of why this happened, who was directly responsible and, above all, explain how high-risk medical investigations are being carried out.
On the positive side, one should be grateful that this very grave shortcoming was recognised, reached the public domain and now seems to be addressed with vigour and determination. Yet, public confidence will take more than that to be assured that the functioning of this hospital is living up to its declared expectations.
The people rightly expect transparency and accountability.