The Mater Dei Hospital will serve the country for the next 30 to 50 years, as against St Luke’s 80 years, Finance Ministry parliamentary secretary Tonio Fenech said yesterday, at the end of a tour of the new hospital with Anita Perry, the wife of the governor of Texas.

The new hospital’s Lm250 million price tag represents no small expenditure, and indeed constitutes the biggest capital investment made by any Maltese government to date.

When broken down over the hospital’s lifespan, the cost comes to about Lm5 million per year.

Describing the new hospital as “another milestone in the success of Maltese health care services”, Mr Fenech commented on how the investment reflected the seriousness with which the government took the issue of health care.

The government, he added, was working hard to achieve a 1 July opening date for the Mater Dei hospital, and while there had been some hiccups in the supply and contracting process, the government was actively pursuing this goal.

The hospital, Mr Fenech explained, was in the final stages of completion and work has now turned to external and common areas and landscaping efforts. In the meantime, two more internal areas – Accident and Emergency, and Block H, which contains the mortuary – are to be completed within the next few days.

The first phase of the migration process from St Luke’s to Mater Dei is to begin next month, when the transfer of the telephone system gets underway, while a public information campaign will soon be launched with the aim of keeping everyone informed and up-to-date on the migration process.

Government expenditure on health care this year, Mr Fenech remarked, would amount to Lm143 million, or some e824 per capita. The investment in the new hospital, he added, reflected the fact that the government held health care as a primary objective.

The hospital, he added, has been “designed to care” as much for the carers as for the patients themselves, so that all health care professionals would be able to provide a good service.

He explained how some 7,500 people have so far visited the new hospital, which is the largest hospital construction site in Europe, and have expressed their satisfaction, as will the first of the new hospital’s patients when they begin attending the state-of-the-art facility on 1 July.

Mr Fenech was speaking on the occasion of Mrs Perry’s visit to Malta and the new hospital. A nurse by profession, and a staunch advocate of health care issues, Mrs Perry described Mater Dei as “an incredible hospital and a real example of innovation in health care”, which will be a great source of pride for the health care professionals working there.

She also applauded the government’s commitment to health care, as evidenced by the “state-of-the-art” hospital, as “commendable”.

Outlining her work in areas such as cancer research and the fight against obesity, she cited the need to ensure available and affordable health care and fight disease as areas that “know no borders”.

“It’s amazing to note how many common issues we share, but where there are common problems, there are also common solutions,” Mrs Perry said. “We are all in this together, we live in an independent world where knowledge is power.”

Mrs Perry was joined on her tour by the prime minister’s wife, Catherine Gonzi, Mr Fenech, US Ambassador Molly Bordonaro, Mater Dei chief executive officer Marion Rizzo and other officials.