Updated 4.30pm, adds PN's reply

Steward Healthcare on Thursday defended its investment record in Malta after a report it presented in court was ridiculed by former PN leader Adrian Delia.

Delia has gone to court calling for the annulment of the contract awarded by the government to Vitals Global Healthcare, which was then taken over by Steward. The former opposition leader argued that contract conditions have not been met.  

Steward said its report of investment must be reviewed in its entirety and not on a selective basis.

"Dr Delia’s deliberate act of omitting key projects and investments made in the last years in the three hospitals does not do justice to the hard work of SHCM’s team and its stakeholders," it said.

Steward currently manages Gozo Hospital, Karin Grech and St Luke's.

The company said its report demonstrated the significant amount of work and many millions it had invested to upgrade services, infrastructure and equipment at the hospitals.

"Both the large, significant and more visible projects as well as the so called 'smaller' projects quoted by Dr Delia are equally important when running a hospital."

It said that key projects left out by former leader of the Opposition included the state-of-the-art Barts and the London School of Medicine (QMUL) and the refurbishment and upgrades of Gozo's Hospital's Emergency Department.

Karin Grech Hospital and St Luke’s Hospital (SLH) campus also saw an upgrade of the Physiotherapy Department and a new Orthotics and Prosthetics Unit.

The ortho gym at the newly refurbished Physiotherapy Department in Karin Grech Hospital.

It said the number of ventilators in Gozo Hospital increased to an unprecedented 25 units, thanks to Steward’s international supply chain.

The investment, Steward said, demonstrated its ongoing commitment to improve the quality of its services for the benefit of patients, staff and the communities it serves.

PN's reply

In a reply, Delia and PN health spokesman Stephen Spiteri said the report of investment present by Steward did not include any documentation to support the company's claims.

Moreover, although, over a five-year period, Steward had received scores, if not hundreds, of millions of euros from the government, it failed to show where it had invested this money.

The investment in Barts was the only multi-million project the company invested in but it was only beneficial to the company and not the public in general.

Delia and Spiteri challenged Steward to show they had carried out the €190 million worth of investment they had committed to, which money they had to recover through their work.

They should publish the payments received from the government for infrastructural works which they had presumably passed on to an Indian company and which had ended in the company’s accounts, they said.

They added that Stewards should also show the infrastructural, medical engineering works as well as investment in equipment, including the 400 new beds at St Luke’s Hospital.

They challenged the company to renounced the €100 million agreement signed as payment to them were the contract to be halted even if this was because of their own shortcomings.

They also challenged it to publish the agreement through which Ram Tumuluri was paid €5 million for a project that never functioned.

If Steward, in their own name and as the heirs of Vitals, wanted to give the people a statement of their work, they should publish a detailed and audited report that would include receipts and payments received and made.

They should also explain the shortcomings found by the auditor general in a report that condemned the tender and the agreement, the PN spokesmen said.