Is John Dalli behind one of the bidders for the management of St Luke’s and Gozo General?

John Dalli, accepting his appointment as the prime minister’s personal consultant on health, at the Auberge de Castille. Days after this, Dalli moved into an office at Mater Dei Hospital with his daughters Claire Gauci Borda and Louisa Dalli, his ‘persons of trust’. The government told the press that none of them were being paid and that it was all voluntary.

Projects Malta Ltd, the company which is managing the call for expressions of interest for investment in and management of St Luke’s Hospital and Gozo General, says that it received three bids.

One of them – a joint offer – is from Oxley Group, with which the government has reached a secret agreement already, under the guise of another two companies, Vitalis Global Healthcare and Bluestone Investments.

And another is from Image Hospitals, an Indian operation out of Hyderabad.

Somebody who worked closely with John Dalli when he was Minister for Health in 2008 to 2010 informs me that Dalli was completely obsessed, to the point of monomania, with having an Indian system to run the state general hospital, Mater Dei.

He fixated on it and try to persuade others of how essential it was to have this Indian system for the Maltese hospital. He even planned trips to India to check it out, but I can get no information on whether he did actually go, because – as my informant pointed out – he could have gone on his own ‘private time’ so that nothing would show up in the official ministry records. If he felt comfortable doing this kind of thing as a European Commissioner, he would have done it as a health minister.