A new 8,000 square metre medical school will be built at the University of Malta, eventually replacing the facilities used both on the University campus and in Mater Dei Hospital, The Malta Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Speaking to this newsroom, Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Chris Fearne said that the new building, which will be built between the University’s Msida campus and Mater Dei Hospital, will house the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery and the Faculty of Health Sciences.

The Faculty of Medicine and Surgery currently has departments and offices spread across the University’s Msida campus and in Mater Dei Hospital, and the Faculty of Health Sciences is also housed in the hospital. It is expected that the building of the new facilities will take around two years, said Fearne.

Once the new medical school is built and opened for students, the departments that are currently in Mater Dei Hospital will be moved into the new building. The space left by moving these departments will be converted into more wards and clinical areas to provide more services to patients, he said.

Fearne had first referred to the project at the end of last month during the Budget discussion for the Health Ministry, but had not gone into detail regarding the timeline and details of the project.

The news comes days after the medical school in Gozo – the Queen Mary University of London Malta campus – was officially inaugurated. The four-storey, 8,100 square metre building boasts a 140-seat auditorium, two smaller halls, two computer labs and several clinical skills rooms, amongst other facilities.

On Thursday, 28 November, Fearne will address a business breakfast entitled ‘Health Vision: In the next decade’, organised by The Malta Business Weekly in collaboration with the Ministry for Health.