The new mental health hospital adjacent to Mater Dei is not expected to be up and running before 2025, Health Minister Chris Fearne told Times of Malta on Wednesday.
The deadline was given during a news conference marking the launch of a public consultation period on a mental health strategy covering 2020 to 2030.
Dr Fearne stressed that this strategy was not only about infrastructural works and the refurbishment of wards. It was also meant to focus on improving community care, prevention, and the effects of substance abuse.
The document, which includes 75 proposals, seeks to reach out to children in schools, to flag any potential mental health problems from a young age.
However, such targets would require the transformation of the mental health service network, in other words, a better infrastructure than the existing one, which was largely based on the services being provided at Mount Carmel Hospital.
The latter would be re-purposed as a psycho-geriatric care facility, shifting its function to an institution housing aging patients requiring specialised mental care.
Consequently, its present function would be taken over by a new hospital planned to be constructed adjacent to…
