The Government is hoping to recover more than €2 million in unpaid health services given to non-EU nationals in Malta since 2008, figures tabled in Parliament have revealed.
The figures show that the various public healthcare providers issued 1,206 invoices for health services since 2008, but only 513 of these were paid.
Almost 700 patients were allowed to leave without settling their bill.
Mater Dei Hospitalis owed more than€1.25 million from almost 600 patients
According to statistics revealed in Parliament by Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia in reply to a question put by Opposition health spokesman Claudio Grech, Mater Dei Hospital issued bills worth €2.53 million between January 2008 and August this year, but only €1.27 million was actually paid.
Mater Dei Hospital is owed over €1.25 million from almost 600 patients who received hospital care and were allowed to leave without paying.
The Gozo General Hospital only recovered €25,500 of the €261,253 it had billed while Mount Carmel Hospital collected just over €27,000 of the €660,300 it was owed.
The situation at Karin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital is worse as it recovered nothing of the €38,000 in bills issued in November and December 2011 for care provided to two American nationals.
One female patient had been billed just over €5,000 while the other, a man, had been billed almost €33,000.
At Mater Dei Hospital, 1,070 bills were issued since 2008. Five-hundred-and-eighty-four remained unpaid. The largest number of unpaid bills was in 2010 when 131 of the 216 bills issued were not settled.
Out of the 92 bills issued between January and August this year, 20 were paid and 72 were not, with over €218,300 owed for this year alone.
Among the heftiest bills issued for treatment this year were for a Libyan in February and May, amounting to almost €34,000, along with treatment provided to a Serb national, worth nearly €30,000.
An American woman was billed almost €36,200 in July, but it has remained unpaid.
In February last year, another Serb was given €53,500 worth of treatment and a Libyan was billed almost €27,000, but both remain unpaid.
However, in 2011 a Canadian paid a €40,000 bill for treatment and a Chinese also paid for the €26,000 in treatment he received.
At the Mount Carmel Psychiatric Hospital, only 15 patients of the 99 billed since 2008 have actually paid up.
The heftiest bills which remained unpaid in 2011, was that of an American billed €23,300 in January, an Eritrean billed €23,000 in May, another Eritrean billed €27,000 in July and a Sudanese billed almost €79,000 in November.
In November last year, a Nigerian was billed more than €28,000 but this remained unpaid.
This year, an Eritrean was billed nearly €60,000 for care received at Mount Carmel Hospital while an Ethiopian was billed almost €32,000, but these both remained unpaid.
Questions sent to the Health Ministry asking whether these expenses would ever be recovered remained unanswered.