A national fund that administers money generated from Malta’s sale-of-citizenship scheme has donated €8 million to Hospice Malta to help it build the country’s first complex for palliative care patients.

Prime Minister Robert Abela and parliamentary secretary for citizenship Alex Muscat launched the donation at a former religious building in Ħamrun that is being transformed into St Michael Complex – a complex that will provide dedicated and specialised medical care for people living with serious illnesses.

The complex will also include an inpatient clinic, allowing patients who need regular care to move in. 

“This project will change the way we treat palliative care,” Abela said. “This is the Malta I believe in. All families face their own challenges; in their time of need, these families [of patients who need palliative care] will find open doors when they kick.”

The donation by the National Development and Social Fund comes on the same day as the European Commission threatened to instigate legal action against Malta and Cyprus for their sale of citizenship schemes.

“While Cyprus and Malta remain responsible to decide who may become Cypriot and Maltese, the Court of Justice has made it clear on multiple occasions that rules on the acquisition of the nationality of a Member State must do so having ‘due regard to EU law’,” the Commission said.

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