Steward Health Care has for over a year been “working to transfer” to government a dormant machine which produces a radioactive substance used to diagnosis and monitor cancer.
A spokesperson for the US company said it would not make any profit from the transfer of the €4 million cyclotron since it never actually bought it from Vitals Global Healthcare.
Earlier this week, Times of Malta revealed how hundreds of cancer operations have been cancelled because of delays in receiving the radioactive therapy from Italy – while the cyclotron lies in boxes at the Life Sciences Park beside Mater Dei Hospital.
The equipment, used to produce the radioactive tracer, had been bought by Vitals when it was granted a 30-year government concession to run three state hospitals in 2016.
Two years later and after serious financial problems, Vitals transferred the concession to Steward Health Care.
The cyclotron remained unused and the health authorities ended up importing the tracer from a company called Curium in Rome.
But repeated delays in the supply of the tracer, which has a very short shelf life and cannot be stored, resulted in the postponement of hundreds of procedures for cancer patients over the years. All the while the cyclotron remained stored in boxes.
The spokesperson said: “When Steward Health Care took over the concession following the financial difficulties faced by Vitals Global Healthcare, the cyclotron was subsumed together with assets and liabilities held by the previous concessionaire.
“The operation of the cyclo-tron… was and is not part of Steward Health Care’s core business, nor is it within the scope of services of the concession.
“Steward has actively been pursuing the transfer of the equipment to a competent operator and been working to transfer the equipment to the government at cost since 2019.”
Steward has been covering costs so that the equipment remains in good condition, the spokesperson added.
“We would like to further clarify that Steward did not specifically buy this equipment, nor will it make any profit on it.”
Questions sent to the government about the cyclotron remained unanswered at the time of going to press.