It was rather cheeky on the part of the Malta Labour Party to try to take some form of credit for Mater Dei Hospital. But then, it’s part of the political game that – sadly, one may add – we have to endure on this little island of ours.

Yet, indirectly and perhaps without wanting to, the MLP was in a way showering praise on the government for the completion of the hospital which has been described, by the same government and by many of those who have visited it, as a state-of-the-art project that will serve to improve the already good health services that are offered to the people.

All through last week – the build-up leading to the actual handover ceremony that took place on Friday and the following open weekend during which some 80,000 people are estimated to have visited the complex – much was said and written about Mater Dei Hospital.

Of course, while the Nationalist media went overboard in highlighting the events related to Mater Dei Hospital last week, the pro-Labour media concentrated more on the tribulations that have characterised the project at Tal-Qroqq since its inception nearly 15 years ago.

Naturally, the truth lies somewhere in between. On the one hand, one must admit that the

hospital is an architectural gem and that it is

certainly built as a modern complex that

facilitates the services it will eventually provide in a comfortable and convenient way.

We are sure that the patients who will be receiving treatment at the hospital, and the relatives and friends who will be visiting them, will find Mater Dei Hospital to be more user-friendly than St Luke’s.

For one thing, parking will be less of a nightmare for visitors, whereas the patients will be spending their time in hospital – which is never easy – in much more comfort.

We are also sure that, given the right motivation, all the staff that will be providing health services to patients will be doing so in a much better environment than the one to which they are accustomed in Gwardamangia.

We all hope that, now that the hospital has been officially handed over to the government, the migration process to Tal-Qroqq will be as smooth and fast as possible so that the new hospital will be up and running for the benefit of one and all.

On the other hand – and this is where the opposition Labour Party has every reason to criticise – it must also be admitted that the completion of the project has arrived much, much later than originally anticipated, and that the costs have escalated to Lm250 million when, until a couple of years ago, the government was saying that it would cost half as much.

Yes, the MLP is quite right to question why deadlines were not met and why, for example, it was initially said that the first patients would be received at Mater Dei Hospital on 1 July this year, and then later this was changed to simply an official handover of the hospital from the developers to the government.

It has now been said that the hospital will be fully functional by the end of the year, and the MLP will be right to push the government to achieve this target. As things stand now, and with the government still in negotiations with the respective unions on how the migration process will take place and on the staff’s working conditions, the MLP is right to raise doubts as to whether the government’s promise will be fulfilled.

What is also questionable was the pompous way in which the handover ceremony was conducted, and many people felt that the use of fireworks, just two days after the tragedy in Gharghur, should have been avoided.

Now that the handover ceremony is over, what people will be looking forward to is the real opening of the hospital, that is, when it actually receives its first patients and replaces St Luke’s as the government hospital.

Let us hope this does not take too long.