The government is seeking compensation from Steward Health Care on the grounds of two “unhonoured” contractual obligations – namely the lack of medical tourism brought to the country and the company’s failure to build a new hospital in Gozo, Health Minister Chris Fearne said on Wednesday.
Speaking in Parliament, Fearne said that he could not divulge the exact figure that the government was seeking from Steward due to confidentiality rules surrounding cases within the International Chamber of Commerce.
He said however – after being asked by Nationalist Party MPs during Parliamentary Questions in Wednesday’s plenary session – that Steward had failed to honour two out of its three contractual obligations: bringing profitable medical tourism to the country and building a new hospital in Gozo.
The obligation which Steward did honour, he said, was the sustainment of the already existing health service provided by the hospitals.
Fearne was answering a parliamentary question by PN MP Adrian Delia, wherein the former PN leader asked the Health Minister to give a breakdown of the €75 million which the Prime Minister Robert Abela had said was to be allocated to run the Karin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital and the Gozo General Hospital in 2024.
Both of these hospitals were taken over by the government earlier in the year after a court annulled the concession with Steward, a decision confirmed by the Court of Appeal on Monday.
Fearne said that, starting from next year, the same sum which was being paid to Steward in return for the service obligation that they had will now be paid for services to be rendered in the three hospitals it used to run.
Pressured by PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami on how much the government is asking Steward Health Care in arbitration proceedings after it did not honour the other two obligations the Minister said that he could not reveal the sum but assured that “it is far more than what you are insinuating.”
The PN is calling for the government to recoup all of the €400 million paid to Steward and its predecessor Vitals Global Healthcare over the course of the concession, with the government questioning exactly how the PN had arrived at such a figure.
Fenech Adami also asked Fearne to indicate where it is stipulated that such a figure could not be disclosed “in the highest institution of the country,” to which the Health Minister cited ICC regulations and told his counterpart that “as a lawyer you should know.”
Fearne said that like the other party in the case – ergo Steward Health Care – the Government is bound by the obligation of confidentiality.
At this point he disclosed that Malta has won the first part of the arbitration dispute, which he labelled as the ‘emergency part’, however he added that he could not disclose what this entails.
He said that whatever he says in Parliament is being taken note of during such processes and that he does not want to prejudice the government’s position in the case.
Earlier this month, Fearne also said that a sentence should be handed down sometime during this month.