In writing about them, we focused on the light of their lives instead of the darkness of their diagnoses, and sought to chronicle who they were, what they did and how they’ll be remembered. The Iowa Mourns project is a result of months of research to reveal the stories of neighbors and friends lost to the pandemic. Behind these numbers are our fellow Iowans. In the routine of it all a callus grows, a protection against what these numbers actually stand for - people.īehind these figures are storytellers and hard workers, Cubs fans and pie bakers, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. They appear in our inboxes and on our feeds like clockwork, sandwiched between big box store discounts and emails from friends. The numbers associated with Iowa’s coronavirus pandemic come regularly. This tops other arrangements the government made with Steward Health Care behind the public’s back, including waivers in the form of delaying tax payments and a €100 million cancellation payment which the government is obliged to pay if the contract is terminated.Watch Video: Iowa Mourns: Friends and families remember those lost to COVID-19 While the shady concession was the brainchild of former disgraced Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and his closest aides Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi, Prime Minister Robert Abela has repeatedly promised that he would take action to make sure that Steward Health Care adheres to the concession or the agreement would be cancelled.ĭespite public declarations by the prime minister that he was “studying” the deal and “discussing” with Steward Health Care, nothing has been done except for the government increasing the allocation of public funds to the concessionaire. None of this ‘investment’ has ever even started and the company has not presented its development plans to the Planning Authority. Steward Health Care was obliged to build a new hospital in Gozo and refurbish both St Luke’s and Karen Grech in Malta by the end of 2018. While this concession was allowed to change hands, Steward Health Care never came up with the €200 million investment they were obliged to invest during the first four years of the concession, while the deadlines for new facilities were completely missed. Stewards took over the lucrative €2 billion hospitals concession, declared in court as “vitiated” in 2018 through the government’s written consent.Īlthough the original contract with Vitals Global Healthcare, an unknown company in the medical field, was already in default in 2018 when the concessionaire did not honour its commitments to invest in state-of-the-art healthcare facilities despite the millions pumped through government coffers, Health Minister Chris Fearne still gave his permission for Steward to take over the concession, dubbing it “the real deal”. And in the last Budget, the government increased the allocation to Steward Health Care by another €40 million (increased from €20 million) for this year, over and above the €50 million it had already committed to paying the concessionaire. Meanwhile, by the end of last year, the government had paid the concessionaire over €230 million from state coffers. Steward Health Care also has millions in outstanding payments, in addition, particularly those related to social security contributions. Sources told The Shift that despite this warning, the company has still not settled its bills, with the next stage necessitating the government to start a formal suit to receive its dues. The judicial action by the Inland Revenue Department warned Steward Health Care that it will have no other option but to start formal legal action against the company if it persists in not paying up its taxes. Through a judicial letter filed by the Tax Commissioner earlier this month, Steward Health Care was given two days to pay €36,534,160 in outstanding VAT owed to the State’s coffers, which have been accumulating over several years. The company managing three of Malta’s public hospitals through a concession worth €2.1 billion owes the government a staggering €37 million in unpaid VAT dues, The Shift can reveal.
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