Former health minister Konrad Mizzi was warned by a medical expert how the people who could be running the hospitals concession had “no f***** idea” about healthcare.
Martin Balzan, who heads the doctors’ union, revealed on Saturday that he had pulled Mizzi aside after a short meeting with Vitals Global Healthcare director Ram Tumuluri at the Corinthia Hotel in Attard.
“I warned Mizzi that Tumuluri had no idea what a hospital is. Mizzi did not react,” Balzan said.
Asked for a comment, Mizzi said: “As with all major initiatives, meetings with key stakeholders such as MAM were held as, and when required. However, I have no recollection of Dr Balzan making this comment.”
Balzan was answering to claims made by ex-prime minister Joseph Muscat on Friday, who insinuated that medical professionals with “hidden interests” contributed to the concession’s downfall.
The medical association president said the meeting with Tumuluri and Mizzi took place during the very early stages of the hospitals’ concession.
Vitals, a company with no prior track record in healthcare, was handed the running of the St Luke’s, Karin Grech and Gozo hospitals in 2015.
The deal was terminated by a court this year, after having been taken over by Steward Health Care in 2018, amid corruption claims involving government officials.
Tumuluri has always denied wrongdoing and insisted that Vitals had lined up an array of medical professionals to help run the hospitals, but its efforts were ultimately scuppered by the government’s wish to boot it out in favour of Steward.
Muscat insinuated during an interview on Smash TV that a group of doctors had opposed the original deal as they had an interest in maintaining long waiting lists at public hospitals, since it allowed them to cash in by diverting patients to their own private clinics.
When contacted, Balzan rebutted the claim, saying two-thirds of consultants and specialists have chosen to forego private practice to focus on their work at public hospitals.
Balzan said this had been made possible as successive governments, including Muscat’s, had agreed to boost the pays of medical professionals. “In reality, the waiting list for private practices is often longer than that of the public service,” Balzan said.
He argued that the medical association had from day one acted to ensure the best interests of patients were safeguarded. He said the union had immediately demanded that the Vitals agreements be scrutinised by the auditor general and has always ensured that the Gozo hospital run by Vitals, and later Steward, was adequately staffed.
In a series of scathing reports about the deal, the auditor general had concluded that the hospitals deal was the result of “collusion” between the government and the people behind Vitals.
The conclusions were confirmed by an appeals court in October, with a panel of judges upholding a decision to annul the Vitals deal, which was later taken over by Steward Health Care.
Muscat is the focus of a money-laundering and corruption probe centred on suspicions payments he received soon after leaving office in January 2020.
The payments originated from a group of Swiss companies that received large amounts of money from Steward Health Care.
Muscat insists the payments from the Swiss companies were for legitimate consultancy work he carried out, that was totally unrelated to the hospitals concession.