Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech insisted in Parliament yesterday that contrary to claims by (former Nationalist MP) Frank Portelli, Mater Dei Hospital would cost the Maltese people much less than the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Hospital, although both will have the same bed capacity.
Speaking in Parliament, Mr Fenech said it was not true that the new Scottish Hospital would cost less.
He explained that in the Scottish project, the model used was that a private contractor built the hospital and then leased it to the NHS.
Initially this hospital was to have cost £180 million but by last year official accounts showed a revised cost estimate of £206 million.
A recent debate in the Scottish Parliament showed that the project had to be re-financed with the capital rising to £228.8 million. But this only covered the first phase of the building and excluded another part, notably the medical school, which would cost £38 million, paid for by a state grant. The IT systems were also contracted separately for £12 million - a total of £278.8 million.
Although the two hospitals would have the same bed capacity, Mater Dei covered a bigger land area, implying that the Maltese hospital would have more facilities such as more bathrooms per ward.
Furthermore, the Scottish authorities would pay £40 million a year to use this hospital, the figure rising by a further 2.5 per cent every year so that the Scottish authorities would end up paying over £1.3 billion to use a hospital for 30 years and the property would not be their own. Some were arguing that the costs would be even higher. But even after deducting the cost of facilities management, this hospital would still end up costing the Scottish authorities more than twice the cost of the Maltese hospital.
Mr Fenech said it appeared that Dr Portelli had picked a figure which he liked from the internet, but seriousness demanded that before making his allegations, he should have verified the facts and produced documents to back his claims.
The cost of Mater Dei Hospital clearly compared well with similar hospitals abroad.
Interjecting, Opposition leader Alfred Sant asked what the final cost of Mater Dei would be.
Would the final bill be more than Lm300 million, including everything? And one had to consider that Mater Dei had been built over a long span of years and the final figure had to be adjusted for inflation, he said.
Replying, Mr Fenech said documentation had been tabled in the House and showed a figure of Lm250 million. That Dr Sant was now saying Lm300 million showed how he raised the stakes.
The Lm250 million included the Skanska contract of Lm139 million plus another Lm5 million for phases two and three of the building, the medical equipment costs of between Lm25 million and Lm27 million, IT, furniture, land expropriation costs, the pre-1996 Skansa contract of about Lm20 million and FMS recurrent costs. The Lm250 million also included Lm30 million paid in VAT.
Dr Sant observed that up to two years ago the government denied that the hospital would cost Lm250 million. But Lm10 million spent 10 years ago now cost much more and needed to be factored in. Could Mr Fenech explain the FMS costs, for public scrutiny?
What were the hospital migration costs and how long would migration take? Two years ago initial costs were of some Lm1 million.
Mr Fenech said Dr Sant should assume his own responsibility for the delays in the completion of the hospital. Labour had promised to stop the project and demolish the structure, but on election in 1996 the Sant government ended up turning what should have been a specialised hospital into a general hospital twice the original projected size. It was Labour which then awarded contracts by direct order for the building of an additional two storeys.
As for FMS, the accounts were tabled in Parliament and had been discussed in the Public Accounts Committee.
Mr Fenech said the migration plans were changed when the definitive agreement was reached with contractors Skanska a few years ago.
Migration would be handled by the Ministry of Health. The hospital would be ready to take patients from July 1, but it was obvious that migration could not take place overnight and had to be handled gradually because patient care and safety were the top priority. The plan was expected to take three or four months but the intention was that all problems would be ironed out by the end of the year. Nonetheless, it was not the calendar which counted, but patient safety.
Dr Sant said that in 1996 the Labour government found a watertight Lm65 million contract on a badly defined project and it therefore had to act to rescue the project.
Furthermore, the government had said the hospital would open in May 2003 and four years had passed since. So when would the hospital open? What Mr Fenech was doing was hiding the allegations of corruption made by Dr Portelli.
Mr Fenech said the allegations were being investigated.
For the government, patient safety came first and the bottom line was that this hospital would give the people value for money and hospital care of the highest standards.