New medical school becomes latest casualty in health sector

A new medical school project, promised to open in 2022 next to Mater Dei Hospital, has been abandoned, and its future location remains uncertain.

According to sources within the Health Ministry, a building within the Campus Hub, intended to house the new University of Malta’s Faculty of Medicine, remains unfinished. It has been confirmed that no medical school will be established at that site any longer.

The new multi-million-euro medical school project, announced by the government in 2019 with an expected opening date in 2022, has become one of the latest casualties of the Health Ministry. It joins a list of other projects that have either been halted or redesigned.

These projects include the Paola Hub, which was initially scheduled to open three years ago but remains closed, a plan to build a new mental health hospital that has been abandoned, and a new promised Gozo Hospital that is still in the design stage after years of anticipation.

In 2019, then-Health Minister Chris Fearne announced that the government would establish two medical schools: one for the University of Malta and the other for Barts in Gozo. The first was intended to alleviate space constraints at Mater Dei, where parts of the medical school are currently located, so that those areas could be repurposed for medical care.

A building, forming part of the Campus Hub, had been identified for the new Medical School, and works were immediately started following the approval of permits by the Planning Authority. However, funding for the project was halted halfway, and the building was never completed.

The new medical school’s 2022 opening date arrived and passed, but no progress has been made since.

Meanwhile, the private Barts Medical School in Gozo, part of the defunct and fraudulent VGH/Stewards contract, has been built and financed through public funds rather than the private investment promised by disgraced former prime minister, Joseph Muscat.

In 2024, following a change at the Health Ministry, the new Minister, Jo Etienne Abela, acknowledged problems with the medical school project but did not provide a clear solution. He said the school could be housed in a so-called’ health village’ at the former  St Luke’s hospital, but no plans were ever put on paper, and the idea is still at an embryonic stage. No plan has been submitted to the Planning Authority.

Medical students and Faculty of Medicine lecturers who spoke to The Shift said they are unsure when and where a new medical school will be built.