The Mater Dei migration plan is an issue that has been quietly bubbling away for the past year or so. Many people seem to doubt that the migration process from St Luke’s will go according to plan. Bernard Busuttil caught up with Dr Ray Busuttil, Director General of Health to glean some information about the move.

The migration to Mater Dei Hospital has been a fixture in the news for a while. Dr Ray Busuttil, Director General Health, said each department at St Luke’s Hospital is abiding by a procedure whereby the staff is receiving training on the department’s engineering systems as soon as these are operational.

Afterwards, the head of department checks that the equipment is acceptable and plans the training programme for the department’s staff on the equipment. Once plans are devised, the staff training programme on medical equipment starts as soon as this is commissioned.

Dr Busuttil explained that this training applies to all levels of staff and is tailored according to their grade. He added that training of medical staff is following the same pattern while being tailored to those systems and equipment of most relevance to them.

Asked whether there have been any hitches so far in the migration, Dr Busuttil said “things are by and large going according to plan.” However, he stressed that in the event of any untoward issues cropping up, they are brought to the attention of the FMS project team and these are promptly addressed.

He also affirmed that migration is a complex process and does not simply involve the move from St Luke’s Hospital to Mater Dei Hospital. The process, he said, started many months ago and the steps that have been adopted to ensure a smooth migration include extensive staff training, detailed planning with full participation by staff and thorough checking of Mater Dei facilities and equipment to ensure that everything is functional and safe for patients before the actual move.

The director general did not say when will Mater Dei be fully operational, however, he pointed out that no specific timeframes have yet been set.

The hospital, he said, has been built to serve the needs of the country for the next 30 years and therefore the hospital will take a number of years to become fully operational. Dr Busuttil also said that the developments in the hospital depend very much on service expansions and staff availability.

When asked what future programs regarding the other hospitals entail, Dr Busuttil said St Luke’s Hospital and Karin Grech Hospital will be used as a temporary rehabilitation facility until a new rehabilitation unit in Luqa is built. Once this is built all rehabilitation services will move to Luqa and St Luke’s will be vacated at which point the premises will then be handed over to the Lands Department.

Zammit Clapp Hospital will no longer be a rehabilitation hospital but will be developed to house a new radiotherapy and oncology unit. Once this new unit is completed, said Dr Busuttil, all services in Sir Paul Boffa Hospital will move to Zammit Clapp and Boffa will be handed over to the Lands Department, while St Vincent de Paule will continue to be a long term stay facility for the elderly.

The Mater Dei Hospital – a history

The first notion of a new hospital started in the early 1990s and was conceived to complement the 50-year-old St Luke’s Hospital, which was about to undergo an extensive refurbishment programme.

In the original plans, the hospital was to have 480 beds and specialise in diabetes, cardiology, degenerative diseases and other chronic illnesses prevalent in Malta and other Mediterranean countries. The initial preparations for the new hospital started in the early 1990s.

The hospital and research centre was to be managed by the Monte Tabor foundation which runs a chain of San Raffaele hospitals in various countries in the world, offering free of charge specialised health care.

Thus the Foundation for Medical Services was set up in December 1990 and eventually design work started in 1993 by Ortesa Spa and the construction in 1995 by Skanska Malta JV.

In 1996, the Labour Party was elected to government and it was decided to upgrade the project into an acute general hospital with a capacity ranging from 825 beds to 1,000 beds with the intention of replacing St Luke’s Hospital.

The newly re-elected Nationalist government in 1998 decided to re-evaluate and re-dimension the new hospital project to 825 beds. The hospital was also re-baptised Mater Dei.

It will cater for Malta’s acute medical needs while incorporating secondary and tertiary services including all major specialities.

All the clinical functions will have a strong research and teaching component.

An official Design and Build Contract was signed between the Foundation for Medical Services, on behalf of the government and Skanksa Malta Joint Venture on 29 February 2000.

Following extensive negotiations that began in July 2004 between the state and Skanska Malta Joint Venture, an amendment agreement was reached on 6 November 2004 establishing a lump sum set at Lm145.5 million as opposed to the previous cost plus contract. It also established a final completion date set for July 2007, which carries penalties for a delay of up to a maximum of Lm5 million.

The materials used to build the hospital are all environmentally friendly. The entire building will have a total floor area of 232,000 square metres and approximately 8,000 rooms as well as a parking area that will accommodate 1,600 cars.

Mater Dei will have 25 operating theatres and will also include four endoscopy theatres, one of which is equipped with an Image Intensifier Unit.

The hospital will have around 1.4km of corridors, with 52 elevators and a card reader access control system linked to a CCTV and intruder alarm.

When completed, it will also boast a pneumatic tube document transportation system saving time and human resources, as documents will be sent from one end of the hospital to another.

It will have 825-bed capacity and state of the art medical equipment. The hospital will also treat patients in the acute phase.

The hospital will offer rehabilitation including physiotherapy, psychology, podology, occupational therapy, speech therapy and social work.

The Medical School and Institute of Health Care will also be incorporated in the new hospital. It will also have a library and research facilities to be used by the neighbouring University of Malta.

Data and telephone points will be available at each bed and food will be provided through an outsourced catering system.