Senior government officials have told this newspaper that the government is seriously considering giving Mater Dei Hospital full autonomy, as was suggested by government health adviser John Dalli, through the creation of a new foundation.

This could mean that following the imminent reshuffle, which will most likely see Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia taking on Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca’s portfolio, the government could assign the task of running Mater Dei Hospital to Mr Dalli.

This will be possible if, as suggested in several sections of the media, the Prime Minister will take the health ministry under his wing. Mr Dalli’s declared intentions are to do away with government interference in the running of Mater Dei, leading to an autonomous identity for the hospital.

In an interview with The Malta Independent late last year, Dr Farrugia had not excluded that Mater Dei Hospital could be run by “foreigners” in the future, as proposed by John Dalli in his report, but to the minister the word foreign also meant a non-government organisation. He did not rule out that the Foundation for Medical Services (FMS), as also proposed by Mr Dalli, could be roped in.

While stating that the report was solely Mr Dalli’s, Dr Farrugia had not ruled out that Mr Dalli’s advice could be taken up by the ministry, that the role of FMS will be redefined from one that is a facilities and project management arm to that of a group holding company, which would run Mater Dei.

In his report, Mr Dalli said that the FMS could provide a hospital management function operating under the supervision of the health ministry in its role as the group holding company of the hospital, meaning that the hospital services arm of the health sector would be designed to replicate a private sector model where common and shared services are lodged in a ‘group holding company’ with the vertical service providers.

In another interview coinciding with the launch of his report with this newspaper, Mr Dalli had lambasted the situation in which the hospital was being micromanaged by officials within the health ministry and the Office of the Prime Minister. He proposed expanding the remit of the Foundation for Medical Services, a move which would see, according to Mr Dalli, the micromanagement of these hospitals being carried out as per ‘private sector rules’ and establishing a proper level of accountability, efficiency, and procedures.

One of his leading suggestions is that hospitals “must be detached from political influence, because so far the hospitals are run on a micro level by people at the Health Ministry in Valletta, and it has always been like this”.

He explained: “What I’m saying is let us rethink the functions of the FMS, to make it a holding company, under and reporting to the health ministry, for Mater Dei, Gozo General Hospital, Karen Grech, Mount Carmel and Boffa Hospital.”

Earlier this week, Mr Dalli refused to confirm to this newspaper whether he would continue to advise the government on health-related issues, now that his report on Mater Dei Hospital’s management and operations has been concluded. He said he would reveal his stand next week (referring to this week), possibly indicating that the much-awaited Cabinet reshuffle a year down the line since the PL was elected to office, would take place this week.

In fact, on Thursday, ministers were urgently summoned to Castille for talks on the reshuffle.

Mr Dalli also refused to say who, in his opinion, would be the ideal person to take up the post of health minister.

This comes at a time when Minister for Health Dr Farrugia was just about starting to implement strategies to tackle Mater Dei’s problems, as much time was lost in the first year since he was elected to office due to the problems at Mater Dei which he micromanaged.

Sources also told this newspaper that the government is looking at ways to control public spending on national health services. One possibility the current minister has been exploring relates to foreign nationals who may be given a limited number of health services for free instead of the wide range of services EU foreign nationals currently enjoy, the same services that Maltese nationals enjoy when in other EU countries and require health services – with the intention of reducing the heavy demand made by tourists on the hospital.

Should the government go ahead with this strategy, it would come under fire from different quarters, mainly from the EU Commission, if EU nationals were to be downgraded to a secondary service or by NGOs if third country nationals, including irregular migrants, were to be given reduced health services. 

Nonetheless, such a move will undoubtedly prove to be popular and surely appease many Maltese taxpayers.

In a separate interview with The Malta Independent, Dr Farrugia had stated that an ageing population was leading to challenges such as an increase in chronic diseases, leading to a great increase of patients taking up hospital beds while the influx of tourists, as mentioned earlier, contributed to the problem. To tackle this situation, the health minister had already taken certain decisions, and the hospital is in the middle of transforming a ward, which was used for other purposes, to hold as much as 22 beds, while also increasing the number of beds in other wards.

However, the overcrowding at the hospital and the out-of-stock medicines remain the biggest challenges for the government and it has been suggested that the Prime Minister will oversee the health sector in a bid to tackle the above-mentioned issues. Despite the health minister having stated that the number of patients in corridors under a PL-led administration is far less than the number of patients which lined the corridors during a PN-led administration, it remains a thorny issue for the government, which promised to do away with patients on trolleys parked in hospital corridors, to deal with.

In an interview with this newspaper last week, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had hinted that at a “major, courageous initiative” for the health sector was in the pipeline, adding that the country cannot wait for the reform of the primary health care system to see the issue addressed since there are patients being accommodated in hospital corridors at the moment.