The government has accepted to renegotiate with Steward Health Care aspects of the multi-million euro concession covering three public hospitals, Times of Malta is informed.

The talks are being held less than a year after the US-based company bought the 30-year concession from Vitals Healthcare Group for an undisclosed sum.

In terms of the deal, Steward will run St Luke’s, Karin Grech and Gozo General hospitals.

“The discussions have been going on for more than a month and Health Minister Chris Fearne has appointed a special team of negotiators to deal with Steward,” sources close to the negotiations, about which very little, if any, is known officially.

Times of Malta was informed that the discussions are wide-ranging and touch all aspects of the agreement, from the investment needed to build new facilities to the level of care and related payments involved.

The negotiations, in which Steward is represented by a team of British lawyers, were already at an advanced stage, the sources pointed out.

A Health Ministry spokeswoman said: “Throughout the past weeks, a number of meetings have been held in an effort to maximise on the potential that Steward can bring to our health service here in Malta and Gozo through the partnership agreement.”

Steward said the company was regularly in contact with the government “with a view of delivering that which is required pursuant to the concession arrangements”.

Over the past months, meetings were held on a collaborative basis to flesh out key performance indicators, developing an integrated reporting structure and better defining the interface between the government and the concessionaire, the spokeswoman said.

“The two parties continue working together to make sure the people of Malta receive the best value and care possible as a result of the relationship,” she concluded.

A few weeks ago, Mr Fearne shot down comments by the Opposition that Steward wanted to forego their concession agreement. He insisted that Steward was fully committed to the deal, which he had described as “the real one” when the transfer from Vitals was announced just days before last Christmas.

So far, none of the concession milestones listed in the original 2015 agreement, negotiated by Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi when he was still responsible for health, materialised although they were part and parcel of the €2.1 billion deal.

“The government will not officially admit it is going back to the negotiating table to grant more concessions to Steward. Officially, it will only say it is trying to ‘clarify’ aspects of the agreement.

In the end, it will very likely agree to more concessions being given and to fork out more millions of euros to Steward because the government cannot go back on the deal now,” health industry sources said.

When the original deal was signed with Vitals in 2015, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had said that the new public hospital managers had to invest about €300 million in the first years of the concession agreement and build state-of-the-art facilities at the three hospitals.

Though no such investment was forthcoming, the government still gave its consent for Vitals to sell its concession to Steward. At the time, the government said Steward was committed to deliver on all agreement provisions.

Vitals folded last year after it failed to ensure financing from international banking institutions and ended up insolvent.

Over the 30-year period covered by the concession, the government bound itself to hire facilities and medical care from the concessionaire, costing taxpayers over €2.1 billion.

The National Audit Office is looking into the deal, which was criticised by the Opposition and medical practitioners.