Gozo hospital helicopter inquiry part of cover-up of cardiac patient death - Chris Said

Nationalist Party MP Chris Said has alleged that there has been an effort to cover-up the incident in August where a helicopter, meant to be constantly available to bring patients from Gozo to Malta, was missing, leading to the death of patient due to cardiac arrest.

Said said, during Parliament's adjournment today, that he knew for a fact that at 10.30am on 24 August, doctors at Gozo General Hospital had ordered that the man, who had suffered a hear attack, be taken immediately to Mater Dei Hospital by helicopter.

A few minutes later, it became known that no helicopter was available, and this fact was noted as a minute in the patient’s file. The patient was instead taken to the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) section of Gozo hospital.

He recalled that by 11.15am on the day, he had received a phone call from someone working at the hospital, who had told him that panic had erupted when it was realised there was no helicopter. Said had then put up a Facebook post about the incident.

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The helicopter arrived around seven hours later, with Gozo hospital CEO Joseph Fenech taking photos of this and posting them on social media, in what Said says was an effort to make it seem like a helicopter had in fact been available and discredit his (Said's) earlier post.

The patient was taken to Malta, where he later died.

“When he was being taken into helicopter, the CEO of Gozo hospital took photos and uploaded them to Facebook in an attempt to show that a helicopter had in fact arrived,” Said underscored, “Instead of saving the man, the CEO wanted to make me out to look like a liar”.

An inquiry on the matter was then appointed, with this being published on 19 September.

Said said the government subsequently issued a statement saying the independent board found no short-comings in the helicopter service, but fell short of publishing the inquiry.

“At this point, the [Health] Minister became complicit in a cover-up. The inquiry wasn’t undertaken to find what went wrong, but to cover-up what had really happened - to hide the fact behind someone’s death,” he said.

After the report was published, more people started coming forward with information, the Nationalist MP said.

“There was then a witch-hunt to try to find out who was giving me information. But it was dozens of people who worked at the hospital who spoke up,” he emphasised.

“One of the hospital emergency workers who was duty on the day of the incident said doctors had immediately ordered the patient to be taken to Malta by helicopter, but it wasn’t available,” he reiterated, “This hospital worker told me there were other cases of patients who lost their lives due to negligence at the hospital, and that the situation there was one of an emergency.”

Said went on to request Health Minister Chris Fearne to publish the full report on the independent inquiry. “If he doesn’t want to be complicit in the cover-up, he should publish the report immediately.”

He also challenged Fearne to come clean and confirm if “helicopter not available” was noted down in the patient’s file, first at 10.30am when there was no helicopter, and then at 5.30pm when the patient arrived to Malta.

“Vitals and now Steward are being paid €1.2 million just to run the helicopter. So they are charging this much for a service were Gozitans are losing their lives. And it’s as if nothing is happening,” he stressed.

Said also highlighted the need for replacing the helipads at Gozo hospital and Mater Dei, which had been removed to make way for works on Barts Medical School and the oncology centre respectively.

“There are no helipads at Gozo hospital or at Mater Dei - a patient has to be first put in an ambluance, which will go to the Gozo helipad. The helicopter will then go to St Luke’s Hospital or Luqa in Malta, then an ambulance will take that patient to Mater Dei. It almost makes more sense to bring the patient over by ferry,” he said.