Roberta Metsola calls for police investigation into 'sham' Vitals deal

PN MEP says it looks increasingly likely deal was “a front, in order for Vitals, a company with zero experience in healthcare, to take over Malta’s National Hospitals”

Nationalist Party MEP Roberta Metsola has urged the police to investigate the Vitals Global Healthcare hospitals deal, calling it
Nationalist Party MEP Roberta Metsola has urged the police to investigate the Vitals Global Healthcare hospitals deal, calling it "a sham, a front"

Nationalist Party MEP Roberta Metsola has called on the police to investigate the process which saw Vitals Global Healthcare signing an agreement with government related to the hospitals concession, months before the request for proposals for the Gozo, St Luke’s and Karin Grech Hospitals was issued.

Metsola said that this, coupled with the revelation that the government had sold the contents of the three hospitals to Vitals for €1, raised essential questions with needed answering.

The MEP maintained that it looked more and more likely that the whole deal was “a sham, a front, in order for Vitals, a company with zero experience in healthcare, to take over Malta’s National Hospitals in a deal worth some two billion euros, before selling them a few months down the road for massive profits.”

She said that tourism minister’s Konrad Mizzi fingerprints all over the deal had been enough to make it “immediately suspicious”, and that the latest reports only served to ascertain was was already suspected.

“There are simply too many questions left unanswered, too many suspicious coincidences, too many accusations of corruption, too much left in the dark, for this deal to go ahead without proper, public scrutiny,” Metsola emphasised, “Within the European Parliament we will continue to look into whether the deal has breached any EU regulations, and we will support any action that safeguards patients and Malta’s national healthcare service, but the revelations and implications are now so serious that it is clear that the intervention of law enforcement is immediately required.”

Metsola stressed that pressure is mounting on the government to come clean about the issue, adding that the Auditor General had agreed to look into the case, and the PN parliamentary group had also filed a judicial protest underlining Vitals' failures to observe its contractual obligations and requesting the Lands Authority to take all the required steps available to it at law.

Doctors would also be striking next week, she noted.

“When the eyes of Europe are on Malta, a responsible Government should do everything in its power to show that they have nothing to hide in this deal. Instead they chose to hide things and defend Vitals instead of the national interest,” Metsola asserted.

“[Prime Minister] Joseph Muscat underestimates our resolve to get to the bottom of the shambles they have created and we will look at every option possible to protect our health service and the interests of the public.”