On a bright day in March 2010 Ram Tumuluri accompanied a group of wealthy Iranian investors on a boat trip in Tofino, Canada. His aim was to entice them to immigrate to Canada as part of the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) that allowed “skilled” workers to immigrate. “If a foreigner invests a minimum of C$200,000 they are considered for permanent residency,” Tumuluri stated. Sounds familiar?
Tumuluri had just taken ownership of Nita Lake Lodge Whistler, managed by T&V Hospitality Inc, whose two directors were Tumuluri and his wife Sonia.
Pique news reported on Tumuluri’s background. He had a business management degree from Birmingham University and a culinary arts degree from Osmania University, India. He had held senior positions with Marriott international hotels and owned Cable Cove Inn and Ayurcare International, he claimed.
Only five years later, as the director of VGH, the same Tumuluri was awarded a €2 billion concession to run half the Maltese health service. We were assured that “Ram Tumuluri has the required experience”. This was not immediately apparent from the biography published by Pique.
There seemed to be one important missing element. This man had never run a clinic, let alone a hospital. Why did Joseph Muscat decide to award him the concession even before the request for proposals was issued in March 2015?
Tumuluri’s complete lack of experience in health was not the only issue. Tumuluri’s integrity was in doubt. In May 2011, Tumuluri claimed that he owned a chain of 50 Ayurvedic wellness centres in India and another two in South Africa. A search for any of these wellness centres proved futile.
Despite the pomp around the acquisition of Nita Lake Lodge, within a few short months Tumuluri was gone. According to Question, Whistlers’ award-winning newspaper Tumuluri declared bankruptcy in December 2011. It also reported that the luxury lakeside hotel had been beset with financial difficulties.
This information was easily available to the Maltese government as early as February 2012. Ayurcare international, Tumuluri’s company was dissolved on April 14, 2012 having traded for only three years with the Companies of Canada register showing that no annual filings had ever been made.
The Whistler Pique reported on June 13, 2014 that when Tumuluri ran into financial difficulties he began negotiating with Michael Scholz, a Vancouver investor and former lawyer. Scholz had been previously sanctioned by the BC Law Society for serious trust fund violations.
The deal between the two ended badly and only six months later Scholz took over and Tumuluri disappeared.
If Tumuluri’s lack of medical experience had not rung alarm bells, his financial incompetence and dodgy deals certainly should have. Yet Muscat and Konrad Mizzi mounted a massive publicity campaign to convince the public of the benefits of the secret VGH deal. They recruited the Nationalist MP and respected cardiologist Albert Fenech whom they used shamelessly for propaganda. Glenn Bedingfield bragged on his blog that Fenech had resigned from MP to work on the VGH project and derided Simon Busuttil’s “negativity”.
The promised revamped cardiac unit led by Fenech at St Luke’s hospital that Konrad Mizzi tweeted about in January 2016 never materialised. Fenech was providing false assurances as late as January 2018 that the transfer of the VGH concession to new owners was still at negotiation stage. Nobody had informed Fenech that the transfer to Steward had already taken place in December 2017. Fenech had even criticised the Medical Association of Malta and continued to bolster the government’s scam by stating that “I wouldn’t be involved in anything that seems shady”. He belatedly realised that the deal was worse than shady and quietly abandoned ship, too embarrassed to admit that he too had been duped. Bedingfield failed to mention this in his blog. By then, Vitals had accumulated a debt of €55 million. Millions more in government payments were unaccounted for.
The VGH-Steward saga has been a disaster for the Maltese taxpayer and patient
In November 2015, Tumuluri while preparing to take over three Maltese hospitals, lied that the project was funded to fulfil its obligations. The main players Gupta, Rattehalli, Tumuluri and Mark Pawley lacked funds for the project. He claimed VGH was collaborating with the Medical Association of Northern Virginia. No such association exists. Tumuluri claimed that the group CEO, a certain Armin Ernst, had over 40 years of experience running hospitals.
With Fearne by his side, Tumuluri bragged that “a capital injection of €220 million would take place over two years. St Luke’s would be open by September 2017 with three surgical rooms and 50 beds”. It’s still closed. “The Karin Grech development would be completed in September 2017”.
It has not even started. “The entire construction project will be inaugurated by July 2018”. VGH did not even submit plans. “Karin Grech, St Luke’s and Gozo General will see an increase of 750 beds,” they said. Bed numbers have not increased.
“The project will create 800 jobs.” It has not. “The Maltese government will not spend a cent as VGH will raise profits from medical tourism.” Not a single medical tourist has set foot in any of the hospitals.
The Maltese taxpayer has lost millions of euro with nothing to show for it. Tumuluri made other fantastical claims. “There are 180 members who form the Orthotics and Prosthetics Malta unit.” Currently there are only two orthotists working at OPU, less than in 2015.
This rip off was not enough. The Shift news revealed that the secret owners of VGH funded the acquisition of Technoline Ltd for €5 million. VGH entrusted Technoline with the procurement of all medical supplies for the three hospitals thus ensuring that for years to come the secret owners of VGH will continue to siphon millions of taxpayers’ money.
The coup de grace of course was Ernst. The VGH CEO miraculously and seamlessly transformed into president of Steward Health Care overnight. Ernst was the same man who Tumuluri had claimed had 40 years of experience running hospitals. Except that up until July 2012 Ernst was still following a master’s degree in healthcare management. He had been chief executive officer for Reliant medical group between January 2013 and 2015. Prior to that, he worked as respiratory physician – hardly running hospitals. By November 2016 Ernst was by Tumuluri’s side in Montenegro to try and “target countries with a population of 5 million or less” for a similar scam.
To introduce Ernst, president of Steward Healthcare to the new prime minister it had to be the most corrupt politician of the year, Joseph Muscat. So why is Muscat lobbying for the renegotiation of the Steward Healthcare deal? Why is he involved at all? Whose interests is he protecting?
The VGH-Steward saga has been a disaster for the Maltese taxpayer and an even bigger disaster for Maltese patients. Medical experts have consistently alerted Muscat to the untold damage to the health service the shady deal has done. Fearne himself requested an investigation into the deal to answer basic questions such as who are the real ultimate beneficial owners of VGH? Why were Nexia BT involved? How was the Technoline takeover funded?
Where is Tumuluri? What happened to the millions of euro paid to Vitals? No wonder Michelle Muscat did her utmost to keep Fearne out. Joseph Muscat, in the name of our patients and the health of our people get your grimy hands off our precious health service – once and for all.
Kevin Cassar is consultant vascular surgeon at Mater Dei Hospital.