PN Leader Adrian Delia handed over a hand-written letter to Deputy Prime Minister Chris Fearne to join the fight for justice over the controversial hospitals concession deal.

Delia has made the concession to operate three state hospitals a key issue during his tenure, using the courts to push forward vital progress on the deal.

Vitals Global Healthcare was chosen as the preferred bidder for a concession operating the Gozo General Hospital, St Luke’s Hospital and Karin Grech Rehabilitation Hospital in 2015. There have long been allegations of major corruption in the deal, with the National Audit Office finding evidence of collusion.

Just 21 months into operations, VGH was forced to sell its concession to Steward Healthcare, leaving €36 million debt.

Steward Healthcare was given certain assurances by the government, namely Mizzi and former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, when they were brought in to save the failing concession.

This included a massive €100 million buyout should the concession be rescinded and a secret €8 million bank guarantee (which has since been waived).

VGH was set to pocket more than €2.1 billion over 30 years for the concession, with the existing content of the hospitals including expensive medical equipment being passed on for practically free.

The unredacted contract revealed that taxpayers were paying VGH around €188,000 a day (€70 million a year) to provide hospital beds to the state, €1.2 million a year for the Barts medical school, and a further €1 million for helicopter service.

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