Deguara rebuts MLP’s Mater Dei claim
Health Minister Louis Deguara yesterday lashed out at claims by Labour’s spokesperson on health, Michael Farrugia, for stating it was a Labour government which “gave the Maltese” a new hospital instead of St Luke’s Hospital.
“What cheek to take the merit of a project which Labour has always been against,” Deguara yesterday said in a statement, claiming Labour denounced the Mater Dei project as a “luxury”.
“Up until last Sunday, the Opposition leader had the intention of stopping the project. The MLP did all it could to hinder the construction of the hospital. It could never accept that a Nationalist government was going to deliver a hospital of better quality.”
Mater Dei was officially unveiled last Friday, after 17 years of construction and a cost of Lm250 million, an unprecedented expense for the completion of a major infrastructural project.
Originally conceived as a specialist research and training hospital, upon election a Labour government ordered the extension of the hospital to a full-blown general hospital.
“Labour decided to increase the hospital’s beds to 1,000 and add an extra floor without even taking into consideration whether the structure could cater for such an addition. Plans were changed, and costs shot up. In 22 months, construction of the new hospital had been stalled,” Deguara said.