Opposition Leader Alfred Sant yesterday, for the first time, set foot inside the completed Mater Dei Hospital which for several years has been the target of his criticism, and said he was impressed by its size and the state-of-the-art equipment it had.
Dr Sant, flanked by Deputy Leader Charles Mangion, Labour spokesman on health Michael Farrugia, MLP secretary general Jason Micallef as well as other Labour MPs, toured the new hospital with Health Minister Louis Deguara and MP Clyde Puli.
During the two-hour tour, Dr Sant saw the most important areas including the Intensive Therapy Unit, the operating theatres, typical wards and patient rooms, investigation areas and the part which is designated for day surgeries.
Two departments – the outpatients unit on parenting and the clinical psychology department – are already operational.
Speaking to journalists following his extensive tour, Dr Sant said the new hospital was “enormous” and that it is equipped with the latest state-of-the-art technology and equipment. He expressed his hope that the migration plan would be carried out successfully so that the Mater Dei Hospital can be fully operational as soon as possible.
Dr Sant thanked the minister and the health authorities for their hospitality.
Continuing his comments of a more political nature outside the hospital building, Dr Sant said that yesterday’s tour confirmed how much money and other resources and careful planning went into building and equipping such a large hospital.
He said that what the hospital needed now was a well-thought-out strategic plan for its management so that the bad practices at St Luke’s Hospital would not move to Mater Dei because their effect on the level of service would multiply in such a big operation.
As soon as the MLP takes the seat of power following the next general election, he said, it would start consultation meetings with all those concerned for this strategic plan to be drawn up. He said this strategic plan would cover all of the country’s hospitals – St Luke’s, Mount Carmel, Zammit Clapp and Boffa Hospital.
He said the hospital cost the country and its people around Lm300 million and the opposition could not understand how it was not being used yet. He said it would have been wiser if, as soon as it was competed, it started being used “full speed ahead”. Instead, services at the new hospital were starting slowly and nearly two months after its inauguration, not much of it was operational.
He said an audit exercise must be carried out at the new hospital to ensure that the money spent was really cost-effective and so that the investment would be translated into an efficient management and a high quality service.
When asked whether a new Labour government, as it promised in the past, planned to drop the new hospital which it had described as a “Nationalist whim”, Dr Sant replied that it was the 1996-1998 Labour government that converted the hospital into a proper hospital in the country’s best interest.
Asked about what the Labour Party would do to ensure that the high-quality resources trained at the University of Malta did not leave the island for a job in a hospital overseas, Dr Sant said the MLP would draw up a strategic plan to eliminate this problem which, before being implemented, would have been discussed with all stakeholders.