The government is to be congratulated, sincerely, on the completion and delivery of Mater Dei Hospital.

There is no need for us to say this, as this will be the general conclusion to which the thousands, who defied the heat and summer lethargy yesterday to go and see for themselves and no doubt the even more thousands who go today, will come to.

This can also be seen by the anger and envy unleashed by the Opposition over the past weeks as inauguration day approached – first the flooding of the hospital due to the rainstorm, as well as the so far unsubstantiated allegations of corruption, the cost-over-runs, the huge bill the country will face to man it, the disputes whether the helicopters should alight on its roofs or on the ground, and so on.

All this, and the nicknames such as Mater Dejn, or Water Day, simply sloughed off the backs of the crowds milling around the site today, eager to own it and to learn all about it, the way the Maltese took to their hospital, some even volunteering to postpone their operation (lucky they who can do so!) so that they can have it in such opulent surroundings.

The new hospital generates a sense of national euphoria. After all, this is why the Maltese chose Europe over its alternative: so as to have a quality upgrade, and this hospital ensures it.

Now comes the hard bit: it is always relatively easy till you get to inauguration day: the devil is in the follow up. The next phase of the hospital’s migration (or rather the next but one since the immediate phase is the migration of the administration) will see the migration of the Out-patient Department, even before the different wards will begin to transfer their patients. Each phase must be carefully planned and executed and at no time must the new hospital be allowed to be as anarchic as St Luke’s has been allowed to be. The new hospital is based on controlled and monitored access and the day people are free to roam around at will be the day the new hospital will start looking like the old hospital in new clothes.

Equally important is the start of bus services to the new hospital and full information being given in this regard (as well as, one must insist, retaining the old bus service to St Luke’s).

This is, and has always been, the way to go: setting targets and listing deliverables and then keeping to both the timetable and the expenditure (both unfortunately lacking in this case), and driving it forward while making sure everything is covered. Whatever is said, the people are ready to pay that extra bit more, as long as they have a better service than they are getting. But they must get what they are paying for.

The new hospital shows the way forward, for it was no joke getting it to opening day in one piece. It had to pass through no less than three ministerial hands, all pulling their specific weight, until it was finally delivered to the country.

The novelty and the sheer enormity of the site will continue to daze and dazzle people in the months to come and unless the government gets it all wrong in the migration period, it should become something all Malta should be proud of.

But then it cannot be or remain the only thing the government got right.

The past days have seen the government fall down on its deliverables in quite a spectacular way, the latest being the much-touted re-opening of the St Paul’s Bay Bypass which never materialised.

And as the country lurches nearer to election day, the government seems to be getting pulled up in one issue after another, one scandal after another. No sooner had we absorbed all the details of the goings-on at the Malta Maritime Authority that we were faced with equal shenanigans at the Malta Transport Authority with the resignation of its CEO. Then came allegations regarding people being boarded out prematurely. It’s a scandal a day.

And there’s also the goings-on at MEPA, which people might perceive as being riddled with corruption but which seems more likely to be riddled with incompetence at all levels, especially at political level: see how the Ramla l-Hamra issue has put paid to all the government’s attempts at positioning itself at the most recent PN assembly, as an environment-friendly government.

Fresh from his euphoria on the opening of the new hospital, the Prime Minister is seriously and strongly enjoined to get his ministers together and read them the Riot Act. It was a terrible mistake and a very serious risk he took when he did not carry out a Cabinet reshuffle the moment he became Prime Minister.