Budget 2024: No mention of new Gozo hospital

Government has no plans in place to start the construction of a new hospital in Gozo, Clyde Caruana’s budget speech shows.

In a 134-page document, the new hospital in Gozo which had been promised to be completed by 2018, was not featured once, indicating that government will not work on building a new Gozitan hospital in 2024.

Meanwhile, a closer look at the projected cost of running the Gozo General Hospital shows that government will be spending less than what it spent when it was being run by Steward Healthcare. In fact, government's health estimates show that while the cost of running the hospitals stood at €50,424,000 in 2023, this is expected to decrease to €42,994,000 in 2024.

Budget 2024 comes exactly one week after the Court of Appeal had dismissed Steward Healthcare’s appeal against the decision to annul the hospitals' privatisation deal. The deal was also described by court being the result of collusion between government and Steward Healthcare. 

While not mentioning the deal, Caruana stated that government took over control of the three once-privatised hospitals, including the Gozo General Hospital. Caruana stated that government would be spending €75 million, which doesn’t include wages, to operate the three hospitals.

The finance minister also noted that government is, “working to protect Malta’s interests,” in the ongoing international arbitration proceedings regarding the privatisation deal.