The Malta Medical Students Association has declared that it welcomes the development of the new Barts Medical School in Gozo, but only if the government's promises that it will not affect their own studies are kept.

At a press conference in Valletta this afternoon, MMSA president Gabriel Ellul said that while the association has long been informed of the plans to set up a new medical school in Gozo, it was worried by the news that its students would be using facilities at Mater Dei Hospital - which are used by medical students at the University of Malta.

Mr Ellul noted that the number of medical students has increased considerably over the years - there are presently some 700 students studying to become medical doctors at the University of Malta - a fact which already created a degree of congestion at Mater Dei Hospital. As a result, he observed, the opening of another medical school would only aggravate the situation.

Consequently, he explained, the MMSA sought an urgent meeting with Parliamentary Secretary for Health Chris Fearne, adding that during this meeting, the MMSA received the assurances it was seeking.

Mr Fearne assured students that the new medical school would make minimal use of facilities at Mater Dei Hospital, reserved solely for certain sub-specialities of medicine. This use, he said, would be scheduled through the use of a roster in a way that would have no repercussions on the existing medical school.

The parliamentary secretary also said that most of the teaching staff for the new medical school would consist of foreign staff coming from the Queen Mary University of London, which the Barts medical school forms part of.

Mr Ellul said that the MMSA was also concerned about the timelines of the project: the medical school was set to open in September 2016, and St Luke's Hospital and Gozo General Hospital were set to be upgraded to accommodate them. The association feared that if these upgrades did not come in time, Barts students would end up making greater use of Mater Dei Hospital's facilities than necessary.

But he also said that Mr Fearne assured them that this would not be an issue, noting that in the first two years, Barts students would only make use of lecturing facilities for their preclinical years.

In light of these assurances, Mr Ellul said, the MMSA welcomed the development of a new medical school as an attractive investment which would improve the quality of medical education in Malta, whilst hoping that in the long run, the number of Foundation Programme posts for graduating doctors would be increased.

But he also pointed out that "we hope that Mr Fearne sticks to his promises."