State funds for GPs treating mental health patients at home

A new acute care hospital for mental health patients will be built, as part of the government’s plans to radically improve the country’s mental healthcare services. 

Health parliamentary secretary Chris Fearne told MaltaToday in an interview that Mount Carmel Hospital will also undergo major refurbishment works, that some of its patients will be transferred to hostels, and that the government will fund family doctors to provide treatment to mental health patients in their homes. 

“When I first visited Mount Carmel as a medical student some 30 years ago, I was shocked at its condition,” Fearne said. “When I visited it again as parliamentary secretary one and a half years ago, I was surprised at how little it has changed since.”   

The new hospital is the brainchild of Labour Whip and former health minister Godfrey Farrugia, who last week expressed his disappointment that his plans had stalled.    

However, Fearne said that the government will this year issue a request for proposals for the construction of the hospital – the location of which is as yet undecided – and the refurbishment of Mount Carmel, whose costs are expected to run into the tens of millions. It will take the form of a public-private partnership, “similar to the investment in the St Luke’s, Karin Grech and Gozo hospitals”. 

He was non-committal on whether this will effectively result in the partial privatization of Mount Carmel, insisting that it will not be fully privatised and that services will remain free of charge. 

In an effort to shift mental healthcare from hospitals to the community, the government will fork out the bills of family doctors who are willing to provide mental health treatment to patients in the comfort of their own homes. 

These GPs will have to undergo a period of training and have a direct line to professional psychiatrists who will advise them on what course of action to take if the patients’ situation gets out of control. 

“Family doctors are a treasure; many families look at them as friends and they are therefore ideal to provide this sort of service,” he said. 

Elsewhere, Mount Carmel will this year undergo a joint venture with the Richmond Foundation to transfer female patients to a hostel, that will probably be located in Attard. 

However, he warned that a recent Richmond initiative to transfer male patients to a hostel in Qormi was met with resistance by institutionalised residents who had baulked at the prospect of leaving the comfort of Mount Carmel’s walls.  

“We had found it difficult to convince even 12 patients to move to the hostel,” he said, admitting that the institutionalisation problem means that Mount Carmel is here to stay for the near future. 

“We want to keep new admissions to Mount Carmel down to an absolute minimum, and our intention is to gradually phase out its occupancy. However, some of its current patients have lived there for up to 40 and 50 years; some entered as youths in the juvenile ward and are still there decades later.” 

The Attard building’s long-term future is still up in the air though. 

“We aren’t going to undergo a multi-million refurbishment project of the building simply to completely abandon it in the future,” he said. “It is still premature to announce anything, but we are studying business models for the hospital’s future.”