On Wednesday, for the first time ever, Parliament held its sitting at an earlier hour - beginning at 4pm instead of 6pm. This was in favour of a more family-friendly House of Representatives, the official spiel went. But detractors had immediately called this a Champions League sitting seeing that the Wednesday Champions League timing usually ate into Parliamentary time.

Whatever. The entire sitting was devoted to the VGH mess. To recap: the government through Konrad Mizzi had entered into a public-private partnership with Vitals Healthcare for the management of three government hospitals - the Gozo General Hospital, St Luke's Hospital and Karin Grech Hospital.

The entire contract had never been completely revealed: when the government finally succumbed to protests and published the contracts, they were so massively redacted that at times pages were covered with black ink which made them illegible.

The persons behind VGH were not clearly identified except for a couple of names like Ram Tumuluri, and had no healthcare experience to speak of.

The VGH bosses made a couple of appointments and some half-hearted attempts at beginning the much-needed reconstruction of the decrepit Gozo Hospital and the St Luke's Hospital façade. But then nothing else.

Then a couple of days before Christmas came the news that VGH had sold its interest to an American healthcare company Steward which, unlike VGH, has healthcare experience and a presence in the US.

Suspicious voices were raised that the deal was done in great hurry because of an EU directive coming into effect on 1 January that would have forced Vitals to reveal the Ultimate Beneficiary Owner/s, which may have been something VGH was loath to do.

More confusion was created as to whether or not the deal has been concluded. And no information was given as to the price of the deal, except, it seems, that all the equipment in the three hospitals was estimated at €1.

This was the situation at the beginning of Wednesday's early parliamentary sitting. One cannot say that at the end of the sitting anyone was much wiser.

Minister Chris Fearne was the last speaker. Those who expected more information from him were disappointed. Minister Fearne was not involved in the original VGH deal and he keeps making this very clear. His line, if I can summarise it, was that the deal was made in the past and now it is time to look ahead.

Along with many Maltese, I believe Minister Fearne has been very competent in the management of Mater Dei Hospital bearing in mind its various issues, but now he must obviously shy away from being saddled with somebody else's baby.

At the end, all he could offer was to allow the Leader of the Opposition a vision of an unredacted copy of the agreement.

Now Adrian Delia, with some qualifications, had been quite forthright on the matter on Sunday. The qualifications derive from his somewhat over the top method of speaking. Such as when he spoke of a pirate razzia 1200 years ago, which many people had not heard about (unless he meant 1551), or when he quoted what people in a shop told his wife. The point here may have been missed by his hearers: children must not be left with the wrong carers: in other words, the government is very wrong when it allows hospitals to be run by unqualified people.

Otherwise, he spoke quite strong words. The ball is now in his court: will he accept Fearne's offer? One remembers when Simon Busuttil, early in his term, accepted a government invitation to attend a meeting of the Security Committee and was hamstrung afterwards.

Steward Heathcare has so far refused to reply to the many requests by the Maltese media though its website is rather detailed. But there will be, or rather should be, opportunities for them to declare their policies regarding the three hospitals.

But with due respect to Minister Fearne, we must decline his suggestion to look ahead and forget about the past. The Vitals deal is toxic and must be analysed and, if need be, responsibilities assigned. This does not derive from a desire to exact retribution but important lessons must be learnt. And, sure, if any wrong decisions were taken, responsibilities must be carried.

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