Aqra bil-Malti

An EU-funded €40 million Paola Hub project, dubbed by former Health Minister Chris Fearne as “the hospital for the south,” is still offering no services and remains closed to the public despite Prime Minister Robert Abela’s staged inauguration last May, a few days before the MEP elections.

According to a recent parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Ian Vassallo, Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela admitted that the hospital was still not functioning. He promised that once it opened its doors, it would provide different health services, from physiotherapy to dental care, on a 24/7 basis.

Asked by The Shift to state when the delayed project would start operating, Minister Abela refused to give a date.

The Paola Hub, named after former Labour Health Minister Vincent Moran, has been a work in progress for the past nine years and featured in the recent magisterial inquiry on the scandalous transfer of three public hospitals to Vitals Global Healthcare and the now-defunct Steward Health Care.

According to the inquiry, tenders related to the construction of the Paola Hub were the source of informal discussions between the main protagonists involved in the fraudulent hospitals concession, including former OPM chief Keith Schembri, Ivan Vassallo of Technoline, former boss at The Times of Malta Adrian Hillman, and contractor Pierre Sladden.

Construction for the Paola hospital started in 2017 but it is running late and over budget.

Vassallo’s Technoline won the biggest tender connected to the €40 million Paola project. He is facing criminal charges related to the fraudulent hospitals concession.

Former Health Minister Chris Fearne, responsible for the Paola project, is also facing ongoing criminal charges.

The brainchild of Fearne and situated right in the middle of his electoral district, the Paola Hub – a health centre – was promised in 2015 and was scheduled to open its doors in 2022.

The project, coordinated by the Foundation for Medical Services, under Fearne’s former chief of staff Carmen Ciantar – sacked by Minister Jo Etienne Abela as soon as he took over the Health Ministry – has been plagued by severe delays and budget overruns.

Due to the delays, earlier this year, the government had to issue a new €1 million direct order for project management to a Greek company, as the original contract had already ended, with the hospital still incomplete.

Its opening date was postponed several times, from April 2022 to May 2023 and later to March 2024.

Last May, in a propaganda stunt on the eve of the European Parliament elections, Prime Minister Robert Abela paid an official visit to the project, stating that it was finally completed and would start offering its services.

Minister Jo Etienne Abela admitted that the hub is not yet open to the public and has not committed to a new opening date.