GUEST POST: Labour and the general hospital
Joe Pace sent this in as a comment, but I’m putting it up as a guest post.
We have been hearing a lot lately about having to wait for long hours for emergency treatment at the new hospital.
Patients having to be kept in beds in corridors, and long waits for certain operations.
All this is true, but who is really to blame for all this?
Every time I hear an MLP spokesman criticising the new hospital I always expect the PN to explain the us listeners why this is happening, when we can boast of a state of the art hospital.
But, for some reason or other, the true facts of the history of this hospital has never been explained. In the absence of any explanation from the PN I will try to give a brief history of this state of the art hospital.
In late eighties/early nineties a study was commissioned to establish what would be best, whether to enlarge St. Luke’s hospital or build a new one.
The result was that there was not enough space to enlarge St. Luke’s and concluded that a new 450-bed hospital be built. This would compliment St Luke’s hospital so we would have had a total of 1450 beds.
But the study also concluded that this hospital would include a section for research for cancer. And this was the best part of this whole project, because that would have strengthened Malta standing in the medical field.
The government accepted the result of this study, and decided to go ahead with the project at a cost of £40 million. San Raffaele were picked to run this project as they were the best in the business of cancer research in Europe.
Of course, as always happens, the Labour Party went all out against this idea. They said that this was a waste of money, because St. Luke’s could be modernised and enlarged to take more beds.
Accusations of corruption about Skanska, the contractors awarded the contract, were the order of the day. At one point Dr. Alfred Sant, then opposition leader, said that when elected they will tear it down slab by slab.
It so happened that the Labour Party was elected in 1996. Work on the hospital was stopped. They tinkered with the idea of enlarging St. Luke’s. I’m told that they even entertained the idea of taking over the broadcasting building, but were advised against.
So they came up with the idea of building a new 850-bed hospital. This to take over from St. Luke’s. Suffice it to say that with 1000 beds at St. Luke’s the situation was still critical, because there were still patients being treated in the corridors. I should know, because my mother was one of them.
So how anyone can solve this shortage of beds by building a hospital with fewer beds is enough to baffle anyone. But then the Labour Party is great at solving problems.
Of course the contract for the works was given to Skanska again – after all the mud-slinging and calling Skanska “barons”. Such hypocrisy is beyond me.
Whole blocks of the previous buildings were pulled down because the foundations could not take the weight of the extra stories. Plans were drawn up in such a hurry that at one stage there was a door leading to a field.
That was what a well-studied plan for a new hospital was reduced to. Building an 850-bed hospital, when the trend in Europe was to build hospitals of between 400-500 beds so they will be more manageable.
But this has always been the drawback of our political system and the Labour Party. If it is not their idea then it must be wrong, and must be criticised and ridiculed.
Luckily the Labour Party tenure in government lasted for only 22 months. Unfortunately the next PN government led by Dr. Fenech Adami had to carry on with the same
plans bar a few small alterations because of the astronomical expense of going back to the original plans.
This is a brief account of how the hospital saga has been politicised and how a good well-thought-out idea was dispatched for just one word: POWER.
Mater Dei Hospital really is a state of the art hospital, with a dedicated staff, who deserve a lot more praise and money than they get. But, and this is a big but, it is not catering to the needs of the people.
It is absolutely disgraceful to have patients being treated in corridors. A hospital that costs so many millions to build and equip, and politics had to put in its ugly face and deprive the Maltese people of such a masterpiece.
But then that is what happens when amateurs try to take over from professionals. And the Labour Party is full of amateurs.
This is what changing a winning horse means. The electorate (as was their right) in 1996 decided to change. But was it a change for the better? Definitely not, and within months this was so clear that Sant was voted out again.
This is what the PN needs to remind people of. The change the people wanted in 1996 destroyed what was to be a hospital with a research centre (which incidentally would have brought a lot of money with it) into a state of the art hospital, but not big enough to cater for today’s needs.
Is having an 850-bed hospital better than two hospitals having 1,450 beds between them? Apparently for the Labour Party 850 beds would solve the problem of overcrowding.
With this in mind I will leave it to you, dear readers, to decide whether to change horses on the 9th of March or stick to the good, sound people we’ve got.
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Thank you Mr Pace for such a lucid exposition of Mater Dei’s history and for enlightening everyone that we should vote for a change for the better, that is for the PN.
This is the truth. I have frequently engaged in conversations with staff members at Mater Dei Hospital and they say the same things.
The original plan was not to supplant St. Luke’s but to augment the capacity with a new hospital.
This is also the reason why it cost more than it should have.
Because of the changes by Alfred Sant four different complete plans were done for this hospital costing tax payers a lot more than it should have.
This is the real impact of voting in Labour, they just change direction out of spite and not the country’s common good.
This is so very true
I’ve been telling people this story and they look back amazed as if they did not live in the same country.
This story is very important because the same will happen with Labour’s power station project.
They will screw everything but after five years it will be too late to fix and will still suffer the consequence 25 years down the line especially if they enter in a contract with a North African supplier.
Agreed, they set the precedent in 1996, ‘doubling’ capacity simply by adding a floor when works were already at an advanced stage.
I can imagine the mess to services, lifts, and equipment sizing. Not to mention meddling with the basic numbers, it will be botched.
Joseph intends to do the same to a power plant, working around existing operating generation, putting Konrad Mizzi in charge of planning, management and the unavoidable short cuts to finish in two years.
Simply to press on with a grand design he’ll ignore the real alternatives and will blackmail the electorate with a political crisis if need be.
It’s a chilling prospect.
The same story happened to me whenever I tried to explain the contribution given above to my friends. They had never believed my true version.
And we keep forgetting that it was Labour who closed down the private hospitals.
Someone should tell the PN about this.
PN know very well about how Sant’s 22 month watch had played havoc with the original plans for a two-hospital system, have no doubt about that.
What, perhaps, has not been done is explain to John Citizen how the situation had developed – and why we are still stuck with discomfort and lack of space.
I have just spent an age explaining this sad episode but could not explain why the wound has been allowed to fester.
I would have appreciated an explanation, a money problem reason is problematical due to the large fee paid for a new parliament.
No, this story should be told to those who plan to vote Labour, but that would be a waste of time, I suspect.
Mr. Pace did not elaborate on the fact that;
Since St. Luke’s, medical services provided at Mater Dei have skyrocketed and include cases where the government used to send patients overseas for specialized treatment, but now are treated locally.
The use of private hospitals at government expense, has not been mentioned either. Thus the number of beds at Mater Dei are supplemented by the number of patients sent there.
Another factor not mentioned is the unnecessary number of ’emergency cases’ which should never end at Mater Dei and which can be treated by a GP or walk-in clinic.
With regard to cancer, the writer did not mention the setting up of Boffa hospital with a number of beds, soon to be replaced by a brand new, state of the art Oncology hospital, thus adding more beds to the Mater Dei complex.
No hospital built in the last thirty years has been a ‘start and finish’ project. Progressive hospitals do not stop building or modifying original plans because technology not envisioned ten years ago is now available and requires special dedicated areas. I know of hospitals which have been ‘under construction’ for 25 years or more even if they have received patients for 15 or more years. These same ‘state of the art’ hospitals still treat ’emergency’ cases in corridors and while, like Mater Dei, they do not send back ’emergency’ cases, many are kept in corridors or waiting room for up to eight hours when a triage nurse determines that their cases are not emergency cases at all.
The fact that Mater Dei has been so efficient is reflected by some 45,000 operations EACH YEAR performed there.
Another factor, not mentioned, is the fact that people are living longer and during the last ten years or so of their lives, they will probably require more frequent attention than ever before. Whether this factor was considered (how could it?) at the time of building MD, is doubtful. Most knee/hip surgeries have become more frequent with the aging population, thus creating longer waiting lists.
Yes, of course the beef about patients being treated in corridors is a favourite beef with the Labour Party and its elves, but ask any of them if they required services at Mater Dei and they will tell you to a man (or woman) that they received excellent care. They include several foreign patients who were treated there and who do not hesitate to shower praise on the hospital and staff and compare them to the best in Europe. This is attested by frequent letters to the Press.
We should be so proud of Mater Dei, but unfortunately there are those who prefer to kick it in the teeth.
Many thanks, Mr Pace, for reminding those PN supporters who are considering voting for a change in leadership.
Keep the same party and change the politicians if you think any of them have not lived up to your expectations. That’s what I will be doing.
Ahna we are positive. Qed niffukaw on a positive campaign. Il-politika tal-passat spiccat. Nippreferu illi we look forward. Jien nara illi l-importanti li one enjoys oneself.
With all due respect, why was St Luke’s closed down – couldn’t it have been downsized to bring the aggregate number of beds to the ‘ideal’ 1450?
I’m sorry to tell you that the concept you are presenting is completely out of context as regarding this issue.
Point 1…St Luke’s was already outdated as regarding modern hospital services. So it was obvious that it building a “large polyclinic” (cos that was all about the San Raffaele project) was not enough to cater for the country’s needs. Modernising St Luke’s would have turned out to be alot more difficult, taking into consideration that you are doing structural, architectural and M&E services in a “should be” highly cleaned area.
Point 2…So the amount of 40mln for the original project where surely down the drain because they would have served to build just a part of what we needed. So why not going for a true general hospital?
Point 3….Skanska….given that removing Skanska would have meant paying alot of penalties, Skanska had to go on with the new projects and submitting new designs. But with a difference…..monitoring alot more than the previous government. Infact taking into consideration the enlargement and proportion it with the sum budgeted, you would realise that 40mln were too much.
Point 4….The fact of building a more contained capacity hospital than St Luke’s was due to 2 different issues. Issue 1….having a more efficient hospital service (including modernisation of polyclinics, home service and more efficient medicines) means that patients should remain less days in hospital. Issue 2…Mepa….if you go on San Gwann side you would realise that Mater Dei doesn’t exceed the view from up there. So Mepa resisted the fact of going up at least another floor…that would have meant adding more than 100 beds. Supporting this theory is the fact that the AC plants are those light blue structures on the roof. Thus facilitating an eventual new permit for a new floor.
Point 5….The change in government…When the new PN was again in power we went back to the old fashioned corruption styles etc. Let me remind you the Door case, the concrete case….the medical equipment case. Apart from the fact that it was taking more time than requested with adjacent charges.
Having said all this I hope that Ms Caruana Galizia would publish my reply
This comment by Joe Pace is a true narration of what happened during the planning and construction phases of Mater Dei Hospital.
It is a pity that the PN are not all out to explain to those idiots who sing ‘Taghna Ikoll’, the real story behind Mater Dei and why the final cost was astronomical.
The MLP hides these events, similar to hiding the whole 22 months stint in government in 1996-1998 purposely. It has answers for the disaster that it brought about in those 22 months. They were so inefficient that, they were not capable of riding for a few months on the good planning and improved standards they inherited from the PN.
The minister of health should call an adhoc press conference asap, explain the history of Mater Dei in detail, and also delve into the modern and professional services which are being offered. it is never enough with a particular section of the electorate.
Unfortunately the majority of the patients who rush to the Casualty Department, instead of calling to their family doctors for minor ailments, are the ones who are not capable of understanding and believing such a comment, and end up voting MLP to detriment of the whole of Malta.
I’m not understanding. Wouldn’t there be an even bigger shortage if the 450-bed hospital were built instead of the 850-bed one? Or did the Nationalists have plans to build two hospitals?
I wish every voter would read this.
Mr. Pace tells us that the designs were changed 4 times and I believe him because at one stage, it was found that the hospital was not accessible for people with disabilities.
If you truly believe they can build those new gas storage tanks and power station to an acceptable safety standard within two years then I have tickets available for my one man ballet show at 300 euros a pop.
So all your saying is that the PL is at fault for the problems at mater dei ? erm ok
Yes, and what’s more, its the truth.
That is exactly how the story went.
In addition, its exactly why the hospital cannot be expanded easily to cater for more patients. The 1996 plans were for a hospital where all the machinery, ac systems, piping etc were situated on the roof, meaning that it is practically impossible to build upwards and increase Mater Dei’s capacity.
*you’re
Short answer is – YES.
Mater Dei was never meant to replace St Luke’s – this is clearly recorded.
It was meant to be a highly dedicated hospital for a small number of specialities including diabetes, cancer, Obs and Gynae and with special research interest in cancer, neurology and genetics.
Guess why the emergency department is stretched.
What Mr. Pace has written above is nothing but the truth. W
hat Mr. pace did not say is that, it was economically impossible to run two big hospitals concurrently so St. Luke’s had to be closed down.
Moreover Labour supporters find it very convenient to draw their old relative’s pension and dump their elders at Mater Dei because they believe that it is their divine right to live on the Government’s back.
What happens is that these elders are admitted at Mater Dei for some treatment or other and then their relatives do not pick them up after they are dismissed. And for humanitarian reasons the Government do not throw these elderly people out in the streets.
In fact many beds are occupied by abandoned elderly people. Even if many hospitals for the elderly were to be built, it would not satisfy Labour Party suypporters’ lust.
There’s more to it than this. The figure of 850 was plucked out of thin air.
Now at the time, St Lukes’ had 1100 beds. We know that hospital bed requirements will increase (wider range of medical care, more patients because people live longer etc.). You can tinker with the occupancy rate, but the bottom requirement will increase. It’s a law of nature.
Alfed Sant’s government asked our medical experts for a figure, and wanted the answer in a few weeks so they could impress the nation. They answered that they would need to carry out studies etc.
So Sant consulted with – ahem – some private hospital operators and asked for a figure. And here’s the wonky bit in all this. A certain fellow came up with the figure of 850, claiming we could make up for the shortfall with increased efficiency and turnovers and day patients and whatnot.
Yeah, right. Or by using private heath facilities, he might have added.
Public-private partnerships, or as JosephMuscat.com will have it, private-public partnerships.
Well, it’s not funny. The government was very badly advised on this issue, by people who had vast vested interests.
You know, same old Malta story (jaqq x’pajjiz mizerabbli). We may have top medicos, but our public health management system is a complete shambles. Ever visited Gozo General Hospital?
And yet, the Nationalist government still managed to increase bed availablity across the health service.
It opened up additional wards within the MDH precincts. I suppose MDH has more than 900 beds now.
It also re-opened Karen Grech Hospital as a geriatric and rehabilitation facility. That’s an extra 200 beds.
It transformed Zammit Clapp into a nursing home and built more wards at Saint Vincent de Paule.
And a new oncology hospital is under way, with a much larger bed capacity than Sir Paul Boffa Hospital.
The problem is in the people’s mentality, and Labour’s manipulation of it.
I mean faster turnaround, not increased turnovers. Multitasking. Sorry.
A very good article. Unfortunately the PN are not good at propaganda. As Simone said … ‘Someone should tell the PN about this’.
Also, re the new power station that the PL are proposing. Place the whole story in a scenario that the man in the street can easily understand, because lets’ be honest, we tend to get lost with millions, but everyone understands what a few thousand euro mean in our daily lives.
Consider a scenario where a family has just bought a brand new car and they are spending an average of EUR 100 a month on petrol. A salesman proposes to them to get a new car that uses gas and as a result they will start spending EUR 75 a month.
Would it make sense to acquire the second car? Would they end up saving money? Adopting labour reasoning, the answer would be yes.
I’m surprised as to why this is never mentioned especially during this electoral campaign.
Very often you hear Labour diehards saying MDH is a mess because of Gonzipn.
If this is accurate it seems they need to point their fingers closer to home.
A general mis-use of Mater Dei is the main problem.
I was there for a few hours last June and the amount of people who walked in with minor problems or ‘injuries ‘ was incredible.
I tried to take a photo (with my mobile phone) of the plaque next to the triage room, stating that the emergency department was to used solely for emergency cases but the security staff stopped me from doing that.
Then we wonder why one has to wait for endless hours, rather than going to one’s own G.P. or a medical centre and be seen to in a much shorter time.
I think the PN need a good PR team because they are failing miserably in this field.
They do not promote the achievements enough and are incapable of arguing against the PL on issues that keep being brought up against them.
These include examples as mentioned above regarding Mater Dei Hospital, the 500 euro wage increase, deficits etc.
Useless discussing these subjects on NET TV. No Labour Party supporter watches it so it is simply a case of fishing in your own aquarium.
If Labour are elected we will have security personnel, messengers and many uneducated friends of ministers in jobs made up mostly of shouting and scurrying.
Hello to all, pero ghandkom zball rigward mater dei.
Qabel ma nfetah kont mort tour ma tal pn biex jdawwruna mas swali u jghatuna taghrif fuq dan il progett.
Mater dei l ewwel skop tieghu kien li jkunu sptar ta ricerka fuq il kancer pero ma nafx ghal liema raguni dar kollox u bidluh fl isptar generali. Forsi ghax ma kellniex bizzejjed tobba u nurses? Ma nafx!!!
U ghalkemm ma naqbel xejn mal politika ta Dr Alfred Sant nahseb li l unika decizjoni li ghamel tajba kienet li ziedlu sular ghax kieku aktar ghandna waiting lists.
U haga ohra il mod kif qieghed mibni ma jistghux ittellghu aktar sulari fuqu. Imma niskanta b dawn il progetti kbar li jsiru.
Dawn mhux suppost periti jghamlu l pjanti u listudji li jkun hemm bzonn ghal progetti ta din ix xorta.
Jiddispjacini pero I m feeling lost.
This administration could have kept St Luke’s hospital and not closed it down if there were not enough beds at Mater Dei. Besides San Raffaele in Italy have sold their hospital in Millan to another company as they were beset with problems However all our problems in Malta are due to a government in office for 22 months only.
@John2
You understood correctly. The cost of Mater Dei Hospital was inflated unnecessarily by the MLP’s tampering with the original plans out of pique hoping to make it appear that Mater Dei was their brainwave when it wasn’t.
Thank you, Mr Borg. Another eye-opener post from you.
I think this should be read out in Xarabank TONIGHT.
Daphne, can I repost this article in my Facebook page pls?
[Daphne – Go right ahead. That’s why every post has a FB Recommend button.]
And despite of the bed shortage, MUMN threats and Labour hissing, Mater Dei has been a success story.
It may very well be the only hospital in Europe that offers ALL specialist services (and not just the general medicine and surgery you get in hospitals on the continent with the same catchment population) with a 24/7 availability and for free.
It also serves a training ground for hundreds of students in medicine, nursing and other allied health professions every year.
The number of elective procedures has been increasing year on year, despite the huge number of cases dealt with at A+E and the subsequent urgent admissions.
Il-veru poplu imfissed.
phew…about time somebody exposed the truth about Mater Dei and like others before me I don’t know why PN never brought out these facts. it’s never too late I guess.