The government is considering purchasing facilities at St Philip's Hospital to tackle the bed shortage at Mater Dei and to address the perennial problem of waiting lists, The Sunday Times has learnt.
With four operating theatres and 110 beds, the private hospital in St Venera could solve almost half of the bed shortage problem at Mater Dei, which is estimated to lack 240 beds to meet present-day needs.
Sources said the government had long been considering the possibility of teaming up with private hospitals in order to reduce waiting times.
When contacted, St Philip's Hospital chief executive Frank Portelli neither confirmed nor denied this option had been discussed. He said it would be imprudent to divulge any information at this stage. Questions sent to the Social Policy Ministry remained unanswered. Discussions with the management of St Philip's Hospital and St James Hospital held about a year ago centred on long-stay patients as well as the management of health centres.
The health authorities have meanwhile started an exercise to centralise the waiting list database, collating the data from all the different waiting lists.
This exercise revealed how some patients had died while waiting for treatment while others had resorted to surgery in a private hospital. These were removed from the list.
There were instances where patients featured several times on the waiting list database as they had been inserted by different consultants.
The health authorities have now started to prioritise this list, according to patients' clinical needs, based on pre-defined clinical criteria. However, it is unlikely that the waiting list problem will ever be eradicated.
Upon his appointment, Social Policy Minister John Dalli said that his ministry had quantified the costs to reduce waiting lists and had requested funding from the finance ministry.
If this request was granted, he said waiting lists could be downsized to acceptable levels within three years.
Some 36,000 operations were carried out at Mater Dei Hospital in 2008, an average of almost 100 operations a day.
This figure reflects an increase of 3,200 operations compared with the previous year, and more operations could have been performed if more hospital beds were available.
Earlier this year, Ombudsman Joseph Said Pullicino called on the health authorities to conduct a detailed review of how waiting lists were being managed that would lead to a system based on transparency, accountability and best practice.
The Ombudsman also suggested the authorities "should pledge to implement these measures with urgency in the national interest and to reassure patients that they should have full confidence in the new procedures for managing waiting lists".
A recent European Court of Human Rights decision means that patients have a right, in certain cases, to seek treatment in another member state and claim reimbursement from own government.
mxuereb@timesofmalta.com