Hospital contractors told to pay up for Rome radiotherapy emergency flights

The health ministry is demanding compensation from Mater Dei Hospital’s private contractors, over faults in its HVAC systems that forced the overseas transfer of radiotherapy patients to Italy.

Cancer patients receiving radiotherapy had to be sent to a Rome hospital, after a malfunction in the linear accelerators at the Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centres that was caused by problems with the air conditioning system.

A medical linear accelerator – two of which were purchased for €20 million for the Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre in 2015 – is the device most commonly used for external beam radiation treatments for patients with cancer. It delivers high-energy x-rays or electrons to the region of the patient’s tumour.

The health ministry set up an internal inquiry board to determine what led to the faults.

MaltaToday is informed that neither the HVAC installers Ergon, nor the accelerators installer Technoline, both of which are also respective maintenance contractors, have accepted blame for the failure of the air conditioning system.

The HVAC system includes an alarm that is set off when the chillers connected to the linear accelerators, are not functioning properly.

This newspaper is informed that both companies have blamed each other in submissions to the internal inquiry. But the government is insisting that the expense incurred to transfer patients to Italy for their radiotherapy, should be compensated for by both companies.

Cancer patients had to be recategorised according to the severity of their case, with the most urgent cases sent to the Rome hospital.