The government and the Medical Association of Malta are expected to sign an agreement covering the transfer of three State hospitals to Steward Global Health Care on Tuesday.
MAM’s general secretary, Martin Balzan, told The Sunday Times of Malta on Saturday that the relevant parties – the association, the government and Steward – have broadly agreed on the wording of two documents to be signed shortly.
It is understood that the stakeholders, including Steward’s lawyers in the UK, are having a final look at the documents before they are signed by the government and the doctors’ union. The negotiations have long been described as being in the final stages, except that the expected signings never took place.
Read: €80m have to be given to VGH for return of two hospitals
According to sources, one of the main bones of contention was whether Steward should be granted a say on who to employ. After two months of talks, and a particularly lengthy six-hour meeting last Thursday, doctors at the three hospitals will now continue “to answer to the Chief Medical Officer”.
Doctors will continue to answer to the Chief Medical Officer
The CMO is responsible for the development, coordination and review of healthcare services through the Department of Health and is considered the head of all doctors in government service.
Dr Balzan would not confirm any of the details of the talks as he did not want to jeopardise negotiations.
However, he said the two documents to be signed adhered to the overall objectives of the union, namely that future healthcare privatisations related to the medical profession would need to obtain the seal of approval from MAM and that doctors would remain answerable to the government and not to Steward.
MAM and the government have been at loggerheads for several months after the controversial concession transfer of the St Luke’s, Karin Grech and Gozo hospitals from Vitals Global Healthcare to Steward Global Health Care, the largest private hospital operator in the United States.
Read: Privatisation of healthcare - Martin Balzan
MAM accused the government of breaching its collective agreement, which, it insisted, laid down that doctors should be notified six weeks in advance before the private sector is brought into the National Health Service. Doctors went on strike in February to protest the move.
The government argued that the agreement was not broken because the contract with Steward was not new and only the concessionaire had changed.
Steward was handed the 30-year hospitals’ concession only 21 months after Vitals had secured a highly questionable deal to operate the three hospitals. Unlike Steward, Vitals had no track record in the health sector, nor was it ever clarified who owns the company.
Vitals pulled out of the concession several millions in debt and on the verge of bankruptcy – and with the question of what it did with some €50 million passed on to it by the government never satisfactorily answered.