The government today entered into an agreement with St James Hospital through which a number of ENT and intermediate operations will be conducted at the private hospital, Parliamentary Secretary Chris Fearne said.

Speaking at Capua Hospital in Sliema, Mr Fearne said that Mater Dei Hospital surgeons will utilise the private hospital’s operating theatres and utilise other resources at the hospital. He said that there weren't enough operating theatres at the public hospital.  The interim CEO of St James Hospital Albert Micallef was also present for the news conference.

Mr Fearne said that the waiting list problem has been dragging on for years and the government was always seeking alternatives to combat this ongoing issue.

Mr Fearne said that other initiatives will be announced soon. When asked by this newsroom whether the waiting list of orthopaedic operations will also be addressed by scheduling them to take place at the private hospital, he said that this will form part of the intiatives which are to be announced soon.

“The government has successfully tackled the waiting list of diagnostic interventions such as CT scans, bone density scans, MRIs, and angiograms.

“However, there are a number of patients waiting to have intermediate operations and major ones,” he said. “This initiative aims to tackle ENT and intermediate operations,” he continued.

He said that between January and June this year, around 26,500 operations were conducted at Mater Dei Hospital.

When asked how much the initiative will cost the government, he said that the issue is of a commercial nature.

He said that a total 130 sessions of four hours each will be conducted at St James. The agreement is till the end of this year.

In a statement, the Nationalist Party said it was the previous PN goverment that had established a public private partnership for surgical intenventions to be carried out. This present government had failed to renew the contract and now, after almost three years wasting time, "it has woken up" to find out that the PN's policy was good and has been re-started.

In a counter statement, the government said that it had "grabbed the bull by the horns" and slashed waiting times for operations. The Health Ministry said that under a PN government, the waiting time for cataract operations was three years, and has now been reduced to three months. It also said that waiting times for MRI scans under a PN government were a year and a half, and are now at five months.