The new state-of-the-art medical school in Gozo, long promised to Barts students, is due to open this month, three years after the promised date.
About 100 students study at the Gozo branch of the prestigious London medical school. Their new campus, built and operated by Steward Health Care, was originally promised by September 2016.
However, it may now be on the verge of materialising. When asked about the situation, a spokesperson for Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry said on Monday the new medical school building will be opening this month.
One of the disgruntled students told Times of Malta: “We have been paying our hefty tuition fees on the premise that we will be studying inside modern facilities.
“Instead, we are still doing our coursework in a refurbished part of Gozo’s Sixth Form while our lecturers keep promising us that we will soon move.”
Tuition fees for the acclaimed university in Gozo run into €30,000 a year, excluding the cost of lodging and other living expenses. A spokeswoman for Steward Health Care said the building was in its final stages of completion.
“Works are now at an advanced stage, with sign-off and handover of the site planned in accordance with the move-in date communicated by Barts,” she said.
However, the spokeswoman failed to give a precise date for the “move-in”.
No precise date given for the move-in
Originally, the building of the new medical school formed part of a lucrative contract for the privatisation of three hospitals – St Luke’s, Karin Grech and Gozo General Hospital.
The contract to operate the three public hospitals was signed between then health minister Konrad Mizzi and Vitals Global Healthcare in 2014.
As part of the deal, the unknown consortium was meant to build the state-of-the-art medical school by September 2016.
The government always refused to provide details of the contract and redacted all the important data from a copy laid on the Table of the House of Representatives.
Times of Malta later revealed that the medical campus was to be financed by the taxpayer to the tune of €36 million paid to the hospitals’ concessionaire in the form of a lease of €1.2 million a year.
VGH had folded due to insolvency before it started building the school.
The task was passed on to Steward Healthcare after the US company bought the concession from VGH in January 2018.
Last year, Steward had promised the new deadline of the start of the 2019 academic year.