Gozo General Hospital, St Luke's projects to be concluded by July 2018, job retention guaranteed

For the first time since the Gozo Hospital and St Lukes Hospital projects controversy began, Vitals Group Healthcare Director, Mr Ram Tumuluri faced the local media and presented the details of the project.

In a lengthy presentation, Mr Tumuluri, accompanied by Minister for Health Chris Fearne, explained the details of the whole project and immediately reassured those present that services provided for Maltese citizens will remain free of charge. Hospital employees will retain their government contract with the conditions stipulated in their respective agreements for a period of 30 years.

VGH and the Maltese government agreed on an initial understanding last October and met the stipulated requirements by March of this year. Later that same month, the group signed an agreement for the assets of St Lukes Hospital, Karen Grech and the Gozo General Hospital.

Once the deal was concluded, the transition period kicked off and the full hand over is expected to be concluded in the coming weeks. Mr Tumuluri explained that he met with the employees, around 500 in total, through 10 'well-attended' sessions. He guaranteed to them a 100% retention of employment for the next 30 years.

Mr Tumuluri gave detailed description of the timeline and the deadlines agreed upon. The construction work on the Gozo General Hospital will start next week. Barthes Medical School is expected to be completed by July 2017, and VGH believes that the first students can start their course by September 2017.

St Lukes will be partially open by September 2017. It was explained that three surgical rooms and some 50 beds will be ready to use by this time. The Karen Grech section, which stis adjacent to St Lukes, will also be completed by September 2017.

The entire construction project is expected to be concluded in a period of 24 months and the new hospitals will be inaugurated in the year of the general election, by July of 2018.

Vitals Group Healthcare will be responsible for the whole project, from structure, to implementation and the actual operation. The company is investing €220 million. 

GGH CEO Nadine Delicata, KGRH CEO Stephen Zammit, cardiologist Albert Fenech and Professor Mark Brincat were present during the presentation. 

More details about the whole project in tomorrow's print edition of The Malta Independent on Sunday.

from The Malta Independent http://ift.tt/1UGiLBD
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