Hospitals in the US run by Steward Health Care languished without the substantial capital investment required to maintain and upgrade facilities, a report says.

In one Florida Hospital, 5,000 bats infested the top floors, forcing the intensive care unit to move down to the second floor, where a burst pipe caused most of the sinks to back up with sewage, a report in The American Prospect says.

In February last year, soon after a court in Malta had rescinded the a deal which had seen three public hospitals passed on to Vitals, and later Steward, Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech and MP Adian Delia, who had instituted the case, had led journalists in an impromptu tour of St Luke’s Hospital to expose lack of investment in spite of the Maltese government handing over more than €400 million in seven years,

Hospital operator Steward Health Care filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month.

It later said it plans to sell off all its hospitals in the US.

The Prospect report may be read here