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Pullicino Orlando says Portelli’s refusal to halt acquisition process is ‘arrogant’
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando rubbishes claims that insistence to discuss private hospital’s acquisition rises from owner’s relationship with Richard Cachia Caruana.
13 October 2012, 12:00am
Miriam Dalli
Miriam Dalli
2 min read
Independent MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando on Frank Portelli: 'Me thinks he doth protest too much'. (Photo: Mariza Dunham Gaspar/MediaToday)
Independent MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando has dubbed "ridiculous" a suggestion that his request for the St Philip's Hospital acquisition to be subjected to parliamentary scrutiny was because of the owner's close ties to Richard Cachia Caruana.
"However these close ties, together with the fact that Frank Portelli used to be a Nationalist MP and the President of the party in government, make his insistence that government should plough ahead and sign the deal in spite of all of the above sound arrogant, to say the least," Pullicino Orlando said in a statement.
Frank Portelli, the owner of St Philip's, is insisting the Government should continue with its plans and sign a €12 million deal for the lease of the Santa Venera hospital in spite of opposition from Labour and two Government backbenchers.
"Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and Franco Debono are transferring their hate towards Richard Cachia Caruana onto me. They know I'm Richard's friend and so they want to punish me," Portelli went on to add in comments to The Times.
Together with backbencher Franco Debono - who last Wednesday filed a motion in parliament calling on the Attorney General and the Public Accounts Committee to scrutinise acquisition process - Pullicino Orlando has supported calls for parliament to debate the issue.
"My decision for the plans to be debated in Parliament before government goes ahead and signs the €12 million deal is informed of a number of reasons," he said.
He said that once a related motion had been presented in Parliament, government would not be treating the highest institution in the country with its due respect if the issue was not debated.
"I also suggested that many taxpayers, who are ultimately the ones who are footing the bill, are asking why government is to spend millions on the rehabilitation of an abandoned private hospital when we could rehabilitate an abandoned public hospital - obviously St. Luke's - at a fraction of the price."
Pullicino Orlando said a number of related issues also required clarification: "Has a proper study been carried out in relation to the cost involved to rehabilitate a hospital which has been abandoned for years?"
Pullicino Orlando said Portelli was reluctant to allow journalists to see the state of the hospital. "It only serves to cast further doubts on this particular issue," he said.
"Had an agreement been reached last Thursday, parliament could have discussed the matter on Monday and all these issues could have been clarified prior to government formalising the deal."
Concluding his statement, Pullicino Orlando went on to quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet: "Methinks he doth protest too much".
Miriam Dalli joined MaltaToday.com.mt in 2010 becoming assistant editor f...
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sur jpo mela issa kull min jitkellem biex jiddefendi il pozizzjoni tieghu u ma jkunx jaqbel mal ideat tieghek huwa arroganti. din id demokrazija li tiftahar li thaddan. tidher li inti hlift li hemm numru ta nies li trid tivvendika ruhhek minnhom. @ biex tiranga SLH mhux 12 il miljun trid imma madwar 40 miljun.
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ALGAN, of course not! This deal's purpose has nothing to do with improving the health services on the island. So much is blatantly obvious. More so, when all was concluded under wraps and now they do not want even to discuss it. So please do not even try to make sense out of a deal that does not.
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Maltese public opinion is already tiring of GOV,what he is doing is bailing out St Philip's hospital.Because everybody know's that St Luke's will be better at a fraction of the price.
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The PN wants to shut Frank Portelli's mouth in view of the forthcoming debates on IVF and Co-habitation. Also killing two birds with one €12 million stone by engaging Portelli to repeat his 2008 Villa Arrigo performance to convince hundreds of disgruntled PN sympathisers to vote. This is a simple matter of using public funds to buy back PN votes.
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Rather than arrogant I would say a pressing need for a bailout by the owners of St. Philips and their creditors before a general election after which friends might no longer be in power. I have been saying for a long time that the only long term solution to bed shortage and to allow Master Dei to function efficiently as an acute hospital is to have a secondary hospital with beds for the elderly and other long term invalids who do not need acute treatment but cannot be sent home or handled in an old people's home. St Luke should have and can still be converted for this purpose. One asks whether in considering this deal a holistic long term strategy and plan were analyzed. One also asks whether all alternatives were considered, whether long-term care solutions were studied, whether a proper valuation of this closed general purpose private hospital was undertaken and whether fitness for purpose without incurring further costs was factored in. No such information has been forthcoming and therefore rightly or wrongly the suspicion of a desperate non transparent arrangement not in the best interests of the health services of this country looms suspiciously into the foreground. .
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Nahseb in-nies issa telghalhom Sanfilep. Xbajna nibilghu zkuk minghand GonziPN. X'sar minnu Zammit Clapp. Kulhadd kien ifahhar is-servizz ta' dan l-isptar. Boffa u San Luqa ghal hbieb jew.
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THE BATTLE OF THE SAINTS
Are the 12 million euros rent just the tip of the iceberg? Yesterday Profs Fenech the well respected heart surgeon and prospective PN candidate revealed on ONE TV that to furnish St.Lukes hospital would cost about forty million euros. A figure the country could not afford as St.Philip was a bargain at 12 million euros. Profs I totally disagree with your maths.
12 million is just the rent. Plus 9.8 million if we are to buy it after 8 years. There is a cost to renovate a hospital which has been closed for 2 years. To build the extension of about 80 to 100 beds will cost quite some millions. So with the final price of a 200 bed hospital one can upgrade St.Lukes an 800 bed hospital. The latter is the bargain.
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U x'se naghmlu b'dak li baqa minn St Lukes? Inhalluh jikkrolla ? Inhalluh jaqa bicciet ? Ahjar it-tnax il-miljun jintefqu sabiex jigi riabilitat u , fejn naf jien issir home ghal-anzjani, jew ghal xi haga ohra. Mela npaxxu lill Dr Portelli u lill siehbu RCC halli jehles mill-white elephant li ghandu.
Igor P. Shuvalov •
Pullicino is right, why should we tax-payers fork out 12 million Euro when the Government could have rehabilitated St Luke's Hospital, which has been left abandoned? No wonder that suspicions whether such deals are purely in the nationalist interests or if there are other interests involved.
