Just when it seemed Malta was going to lose out on the very important opening of potentially big health tourism venture, a last-minute intervention by Minister for Tourism Francis Zammit Dimech carried the day and a deal was signed.

Just before the minister’s intervention, it looked like the deal was about to be signed with a competing country.

Malta has the ideal team in place to tackle health tourism, which has overtaken golf in the world.

As from July, Malta will start talking to hospital trusts in the UK, each of which has around 700,000 members. As is widely known, most of the NHS hospitals in the UK have huge backlogs, especially for hip, knee and heart operations. Other areas include dentistry.

The plan is to offer Malta as an alternative venue for such operations so that people come to Malta and have their operations here.

Health tourism is seen as bringing a higher type of spending tourists to Malta, for while an ordinary tourist spends some Lm300 to Lm400, which goes down to as little as Lm199 in winter, a health tourist spends as much as Lm7,000 to have his operation.

Contacts have been made between operators in Malta and PR companies in the UK that specialise in health to start marketing Malta. Representatives of the specialist press are being brought over to Malta to have talks with medical practitioners such as surgeons.

As soon as one of the health trusts accepts Malta, it will advertise the services offered in Malta to its members, which will also advertise Malta at the same time.

Another development is that Malta will be offering cosmetic surgery, which is not so easily available in the UK.

Yet another innovation is the creation of a Maltese health card. This will provide finance to those who want to have their operation in Malta but cannot afford it. The card will help them borrow money to come to Malta to have their operation.

The proposed system will double the sum the customers themselves think is right, because experience has shown that once people have their first operation, they can easily move to yet another operation. This will also mean return business for Malta.

If people apply for this Maltese health card, a reply will be forthcoming in 24 hours and the funds immediately made available.

The card can also be used to provide people with finance to enable them to come to Malta and pay later. This is especially meant for people such as honeymooners and could also boost tourism to Malta

Malta’s smallness is to its advantage, people in the loop of this venture told this newspaper, because Malta can offer the health concept as one rather than depend on one area competing against the other.

Another plus point is that Malta has very good surgeons and they have surgery hours available.

So far, Mater Dei has been an observer but if it decides to have private rooms it could attract part of this trickle of people. Mater Dei, as Michael Zammit Tabona, one of the main proponents of this venture contended, has to start looking into ways how to make money.

However, it is important that Mater Dei does not turn into the old St Luke’s with its bad habits and all. Malta has had, over the past years, to take into account the emergence of private hospitals whose track record is impressive. This looks like being the win-win ticket for hospitals.