‘Extreme urgency’ as government ‘inundated’ by Mater Dei requests for beds for the elderly

The Active Ageing and Community Care Ministry is facing “extreme urgency” as it is being “inundated” with requests from Mater Dei Hospital for beds for the elderly, according to a raft of direct orders worth €10.5 million that have been awarded in August alone.

The government has spent €10.5 million this month, so far, in direct orders for beds in private care homes for the elderly as it grapples with waiting lists of over 1,000 people. In the meantime, private and state homes alike are understood to be full or very nearly full to the brim.

The €10.5 million in direct orders for beds comes on top of the €13 million that has already been spent on such services over the first six months of this year.

According to notices of direct orders published, the awards of contracts without calls for competition result from “extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable for the contracting authority [the Active Ageing and Community Care Ministry]” to “address waiting list pressure”.

The situation, according to the wording in the contract notice, is becoming increasingly dire.

“AACC is being inundated with requests from Mater Dei Hospital (MDH) to admit patients in our residential care homes due to the large influx of patients being admitted at MDH and in view of the always long waiting list of elderly people waiting to reside in a care home.”

The other primary reason for the purchasing of still more bed space, according to the official contract award notices, was that the “Cospicua Home for Older Persons has been closed to be refurbished and residents are being allocated at other Care Homes. These are the main reasons for buying these additional beds.”

The Imperial Residence Home in Sliema won the lion’s share, bagging a contract for the provision of long-term care beds worth €8,269,440.

Casa Pinto in Qormi received a direct order of €782,943, CareMalta was awarded a €363 893 contract, while St Elizabeth Residential Home in Rabat was awarded two contracts, respectively worth €650,436 and €395 321.

It is understood that the direct orders are a matter of management by crisis and that, following contractual issues at the Cospicua home for the elderly, a new breed of competitive tenders are to be published in the coming months in the upcoming tenders for the Cospicua and Msida homes.

This month’s expenditure comes on top of the €13 million in direct orders over the first six months of this year to buy more beds for the elderly from the private sector.

The Imperial Residential Home won an order of over €5 million, for an additional 40 beds over the next three and a half years.

49 additional beds were leased from Dar l-Annunzjata in Tarxien for €3.5 million until February 2026 while the Archbishop’s Curia was awarded €1.5 million in direct orders to provide beds at Dar Saura and Casa Leone.

Another 34 beds were leased from Casa Pinto in Qormi for almost €800,000 for 18 months while CareMalta was awarded a new contract worth almost €400,000 for an additional 10 beds across various homes.

Although the ministry explains away the latest raft of direct orders as having been necessitated by ‘extreme urgency’, the practice has been the order of the day for years with no rules in place and everything depending on government officials who negotiate piecemeal contracts worth millions of euros with the homes’ operators.