The obituary and tribute paid to the late Don Luigi Maria Verzè in The Sunday Times of 8 January went out of its way to mention the dealings he had with the Maltese government at the time, which led to the withdrawal of the San Raffaele Hospital project intended for Malta.

Don Luigi Verzè’s lifelong dedication to the cause of the sick is of course most praiseworthy and is not in question here.

However, it is well to remember that halting this project and its substitution has spared Malta the negative repercussions that would have hit a recently built and costly prime hospital as a result of gross mismanagement at the parent San Raffaele Hospital directorate in Milan.

The debacle in Milan was serious enough to cause the suicide of its chief financial controller and the bankruptcy of San Raffaele Hospital.

Instead of which we have a state of the art, acute general teaching hospital owned and run by our own state, providing hospital services of the highest order and proving of incalculable benefit to the whole population of these islands.

We have much to be grateful for to Providence and to our Maltese leaders.

Prof. Joseph A. Muscat

TA’ XBIEX