The decompression chamber in Gozo was not being used at present because the medical officer who was to manage the section has retired, the Gozo Ministry said. Preparations were in hand for the vacancy to be filled, it added.

The ministry was referring to a newspaper report claiming that an expert report about air monitoring at the Gozo General Hospital had been withheld for months. The ministry said this was a lie. In fact it was the minister, Giovanna Debono, who had told parliament that an expert had been appointed to study the effect of the hospital’s chimney on the decompression chamber. The report had been handed to the ministry towards the end of last May.

It was also a lie to say that the decompression chamber violated EU rules. The facility had, in fact, been set up in conformity with, and had all the certifications demanded by, the EU.

The ministry said an experiment had been conducted relating to CO2 levels in a room where there were four staff members instead of two, as there should have been.

The CO2 scrubber’s light, which controlled the levels of the gas, had not come on which led to a higher level of CO2 in the room.

But the ministry denied that the level had gone up to alarming levels. Since the expert’s report had been received, it added,the necessary measures laid out by the expert had been implemented.