I have recently returned from a short trip to Malta where I met up with local explorers (@Mtanti95 and others) and achieved yet more new Maltese sites which I will report on in the coming days.
I will start with St Philip's Hospital and I have good reason to put this report up first...
St Philip's Hospital was a small private hospital on the island of Malta that was owned by a Dr. Frank Portelli. His daughter is an ex of mine and I use to hang around this hospital many years ago. We did not split up too well, so I had a nice smug glowing feeling of schadenfreude inside me as I explored "Daddy's Hospital". It would seem that financial misfortune has struck the Portelli family hard.... cue evil laugh and rubbing of hands in glee.
The hospital closed down due to lack of funds and it seems that they just turned off the lights and went home... medical equipment has been left behind, the store rooms are still full of confidential patient records and the pharmacy is still full of drugs. It has been visited by the metal fairies who have done a very comprehensive looting, but apart from that the hospital has not been mindlessly vandalised with no smashed windows and graffiti.
HISTORY
A letter of intent approving the set up of a private hospital was issued by the Government of Malta in 1992. A year later in 1993, the company owning the hospital, Golden Shepherd Ltd, was registered. It was owned by Dr Frank Portelli. Construction of the hospital was completed and it was opened in 1995. The hospital specialised in treating British health tourists fed up with long NHS queues. The private hospital closed its doors in 2012 after running into financial problems. According to the last set of accounts filed with the Registry of Companies for 2006, the company running it reported a loss of more than €500,000. There was also the small matter of a loan from HSBC of about 12 million Euros that could not repaid and is still being chased through the courts. Anyways the hospital was subsequently put up for sale. In October 2012, the government attempted to acquire St Philip’s Hospital for €850,000 a year for eight years on lease. It was planned to be used as a rehabilitation facility to ease the bed shortage at Mater Dei Hospital. The Government also negotiated an option to buy the hospital for €12.4 million from the third year onwards. However, the deal fell through when the Government pulled out from the deal. Dr Portelli is now active in Maltese politics and has been the subject of attacks from the investigative anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia until she was murdered by a car bomb in 2017 (a killing that has now been linked to the Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat - for this is how politics works in Malta).
REPORT
1. Main entrance - the parked cars are for an office next door
2. And the back. the hospital is built on a hillside and had a capacity of 100 beds
3. Main reception
4. Upstairs nurse base
5. As I said this was a private hospital for paying clients and so patients each had a private room resembling a hotel room
6. Metal fairies had been everywhere and had even opened up each TV
7. Doctor's office
8. The lowest accomodation floor was for maternity services and has had all it's windows bricked up, so was a bit dark. On this level was also the medical imaging equipment.
9. Random patient room on the lowest level
10. Medical equipment left behind
11. Siemens Somatom CT scanner. A quick look on medwow.com (which is an eBay for medical equipment) tells me that right now this scanner has a second hand value of about $35000 which makes me wonder why the metal fairies opened up every TV to loot the metal but left this behind
12. Another view and it was not me that placed the flowers there
13. Siemens Magnetom C! MRI scanner (seeling on medwow.com right now for about $140000). OK I accept that it's a bit too heavy to be carried away by the metal fairies, but surely the hospital could had liquidated off this sort of asset to pay off the debts?)
14. Medical records
15. One opened at random (patient details redacted)
16. Treatment Room
17. Something an optician uses
18. Microbiology lab
19. Pathology lab
20. Pharmacy
21. Pharmacy store room was still full of drugs, but before we all book our flights, it's all out of date I'm afraid
22. I took this box of female chlamydia testing swabs as a present for the wife from the Maltese Islands - she was very happy with her gift and said they will be useful
23. Must be the world's oldest defibrillator
24. First of the operating theatres
25. Surgical lighting
26. The largest theatre
27. Never seen this before anywhere - it is the operating theatre's logbook recording all surgical procedures, by whom and of what. Patient details once again redacted
Thanks for reading
I will start with St Philip's Hospital and I have good reason to put this report up first...
St Philip's Hospital was a small private hospital on the island of Malta that was owned by a Dr. Frank Portelli. His daughter is an ex of mine and I use to hang around this hospital many years ago. We did not split up too well, so I had a nice smug glowing feeling of schadenfreude inside me as I explored "Daddy's Hospital". It would seem that financial misfortune has struck the Portelli family hard.... cue evil laugh and rubbing of hands in glee.
The hospital closed down due to lack of funds and it seems that they just turned off the lights and went home... medical equipment has been left behind, the store rooms are still full of confidential patient records and the pharmacy is still full of drugs. It has been visited by the metal fairies who have done a very comprehensive looting, but apart from that the hospital has not been mindlessly vandalised with no smashed windows and graffiti.
HISTORY
A letter of intent approving the set up of a private hospital was issued by the Government of Malta in 1992. A year later in 1993, the company owning the hospital, Golden Shepherd Ltd, was registered. It was owned by Dr Frank Portelli. Construction of the hospital was completed and it was opened in 1995. The hospital specialised in treating British health tourists fed up with long NHS queues. The private hospital closed its doors in 2012 after running into financial problems. According to the last set of accounts filed with the Registry of Companies for 2006, the company running it reported a loss of more than €500,000. There was also the small matter of a loan from HSBC of about 12 million Euros that could not repaid and is still being chased through the courts. Anyways the hospital was subsequently put up for sale. In October 2012, the government attempted to acquire St Philip’s Hospital for €850,000 a year for eight years on lease. It was planned to be used as a rehabilitation facility to ease the bed shortage at Mater Dei Hospital. The Government also negotiated an option to buy the hospital for €12.4 million from the third year onwards. However, the deal fell through when the Government pulled out from the deal. Dr Portelli is now active in Maltese politics and has been the subject of attacks from the investigative anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia until she was murdered by a car bomb in 2017 (a killing that has now been linked to the Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat - for this is how politics works in Malta).
REPORT
1. Main entrance - the parked cars are for an office next door
2. And the back. the hospital is built on a hillside and had a capacity of 100 beds
3. Main reception
4. Upstairs nurse base
5. As I said this was a private hospital for paying clients and so patients each had a private room resembling a hotel room
6. Metal fairies had been everywhere and had even opened up each TV
7. Doctor's office
8. The lowest accomodation floor was for maternity services and has had all it's windows bricked up, so was a bit dark. On this level was also the medical imaging equipment.
9. Random patient room on the lowest level
10. Medical equipment left behind
11. Siemens Somatom CT scanner. A quick look on medwow.com (which is an eBay for medical equipment) tells me that right now this scanner has a second hand value of about $35000 which makes me wonder why the metal fairies opened up every TV to loot the metal but left this behind
12. Another view and it was not me that placed the flowers there
13. Siemens Magnetom C! MRI scanner (seeling on medwow.com right now for about $140000). OK I accept that it's a bit too heavy to be carried away by the metal fairies, but surely the hospital could had liquidated off this sort of asset to pay off the debts?)
14. Medical records
15. One opened at random (patient details redacted)
16. Treatment Room
17. Something an optician uses
18. Microbiology lab
19. Pathology lab
20. Pharmacy
21. Pharmacy store room was still full of drugs, but before we all book our flights, it's all out of date I'm afraid
22. I took this box of female chlamydia testing swabs as a present for the wife from the Maltese Islands - she was very happy with her gift and said they will be useful
23. Must be the world's oldest defibrillator
24. First of the operating theatres
25. Surgical lighting
26. The largest theatre
27. Never seen this before anywhere - it is the operating theatre's logbook recording all surgical procedures, by whom and of what. Patient details once again redacted
Thanks for reading
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