Certain operations at Mater Dei Hospital are still being postponed due to delays in the supply of a radioactive substance from Italy and because a multi-million euro machine that can produce the substance in Malta continues to lie dormant.
Last March, Times of Malta reported that the machine, called a cyclotron, had been lying unused and “still in boxes” at the Life Sciences Park, next door to Mater Dei Hospital.
The situation has remained unchanged since and Times of Malta has not managed to draw out an explanation from the authorities. Meanwhile, operations continue to be postponed, sources say.
Cyclotrons are used to produce a radioactive tracer for nuclear imaging during PET/CT scans. This enables patients, primarily those suffering from cancer, to be diagnosed and the effectiveness of their therapy to be monitored. Since Malta’s cyclotron is not in use, the country has been importing tracer from a company called Curium in Rome.
The radioactive tracer has a short shelf-life and must be used within hours of being produced in the Rome cyclotron. It cannot be stored, so it has to be ordered to arrive in time for scheduled medical appointments.
However, according to multiple sources, over the past few years, there have been several occasions when the ordered tracer consignment was not sent from Rome, forcing the postponement of hundreds of hospital appointments and, as a result, many surgeries. This is still happening.
Bought by Vitals, transferred to government
According to sources, the cyclotron was purchased for €4 million by Vitals Global Healthcare, which received more than €50 million from the government to run three state hospitals in 2016.
In 2018, Vitals transferred its hospitals concession to US group Steward Health Care after facing financial difficulties.
The cyclotron itself became the property of Mtrace, a company that was owned by Steward and a certain Andrea Marsili.
Marsili is also the general manager and managing director of Curium, the Rome company that supplies Mater Dei with the tracer.
Throughout this time, the cyclotron was never used.
On January 8 this year, government-owned Malta Enterprise purchased Steward’s 237,000 shares – the majority – in Mtrace for a nominal fee of €1 each, according to the Malta Business Registry.
The rest of the shares, 12,500, were retained by Marsili.
The reason for the Malta Enterprise purchase is unclear. Questions sent to the Health Ministry and Malta Enterprise asking for details of this transaction, and asking when the cyclotron will be finally in use, remain unanswered.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Steward Health Care confirmed that it transferred the cyclotron asset to the government of Malta and “has made no profit from this transaction”.
The details of the transaction are commercially sensitive and subject to confidentiality and therefore cannot be divulged, Steward said.
“Steward Malta reiterates that the cyclotron was originally acquired by Vitals Global Healthcare and when Steward Health Care, pursuant to an agreement with the government of Malta, took over the concession following the failure of VGH, the cyclotron was part of the assets and liabilities held by the previous concessionaire.
“Steward reiterates statements made in March 2021 that the operation of the cyclotron, which is used in nuclear medicine to produce radionuclides, was not then and is not today part of Steward Health Care’s core business, nor is it within the scope of services of the concession.
“In any event until the cyclotron was transferred to the government, Steward had been covering the costs so that the equipment remained in good condition,” the spokesperson said.