Hospital director recalls former MP’s exorbitant fees

The administrator of St Philip's Hospital accused doctor and former Labour MP Prof. Louis Buhagiar of misappropriating monies that were meant for the hospital, and inflating medical fees that "embarrass the medical profession."

Dr Frank Portelli took the witness stand in a libel case instituted by Louis Buhagiar against MaltaToday managing editor Saviour Balzan.

Portelli recalled how foreign patients and insurance companies would contact him over payments they had already forwarded, but were still receiving bills, and also cases when bills were either inflated or diverted to an account which responds to a clinic run by Buhagiar.

"All our issues with Prof Buhagiar were always regarding finances," Portelli told Magistrate Joseph Apap Bologna.

Portelli said that Buhagiar was also suspended from practicing or seeing patients at St James Hospital due to other cases of financial issues.

He recalled how the sum of Lm1,219 (approx €2,500) was sent by a foreign patient by swift transfer into an HSBC bank account in Zurrieq, for services rendered by Buhagiar through an "unlicensed" clinic he ran, when the money was meant to be paid to St Philip's Hospital.

"It took us more than a year to recover this money, and the hospital had to spend money to contract another foreign company to investigate the swift transfer," he said.

The witness also told the court of how two young foreign students were stunned to be charged Lm75 each for a diagnosis of less than five minutes, for a throat and ear ache respectively.

He said that Buhagiar had called in to St Philip's Hospital on a busy day when the doctor, who was to see the two students, had other patients and accepted Buhagiar's offer to help him out.

Displaying an empty patient's file, Frank Portelli said that he was stunned to be told that Buhagiar was asking for Lm75 from each of the two students, when St Philip's had an agreement with the school to charge a mere Lm8.

Another incident mentioned by Portelli was when he received a call from a foreign insurance company which asked about a Lm400 (€950) payment for an MRI scan claimed by Buhagiar's patient, which however never took place because the patient was transferred to St James clinic in Zabbar.

Portelli said that Buhagiar was asking for Lm110 for his services and an extra Lm400 for an MRI scan which Portelli had arranged to be done at St James, for the price of Lm250 and with a 10 per cent discount.