Govt negotiates health contracts with Xanit, and others

The Gibraltar Government continues to renegotiate its contractual relations with Xanit Hospital while pursuing parallel deals with additional health service providers in Spain to ensure multiple care options for patients, Parliament was told yesterday evening.

During a question and answer session the Minister for Health Neil Costa said he was not in a position to make a statement on the matter given that his negotiations with the hospital’s general director continue.

Nonetheless, he described these discussions as “substantially progressed”, adding that he hopes these can be finalised soon.

“Unfortunately given the breadth of the relationship in the sense of the many services that Xanit provides to the GHA which therefore requires us to negotiate a whole series of prices in respect of all those services, it hasn’t been the most straightforward of discussions,” he told the House.

Additionally, and in answer to supplementary questions, Mr Costa confirmed that he is engaged in parallel discussions with other service providers in Spain to sit alongside the Xanit deal.

He explained that the GHA has concluded pricing with one Spanish tertiary centre and continues to negotiate with Xanit and one other institution in addition to formalising relations with a fourth centre previously deployed on an ad-hoc basis.

“We think, at the GHA, that it is always best for clinicians to have a variety of centres to which the GHA can refer patients too,” Mr Costa said.

In the same session, the House was told that the care contract entered into with MedDoc in respect of the John Mackintosh Wing was worth £1.1 million.

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