The Nationalist Party demanded an explanation from the government on Thursday after Times of Malta reported that operations at Mater Dei Hospital are still being postponed due to delays in the supply of a radioactive substance from Italy, while a multi-million euro machine that can produce the substance in Malta remains unused.

The issue was first flagged by Times of Malta in March and highlighted again on Thursday.

The machine, called a cyclotron, has been lying unused and “still in boxes” at the Life Sciences Park, next door to Mater Dei Hospital.

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.

In demanding an explanation, the Nationalist Party observed that the government had never denied the Times of Malta story, and several cancer operations were put off in the past weeks.