ADPD calls for mental health to be prioritised and abortion decriminalised

ADPD - The Green Party called for mental health to be prioritised with increased investment and for abortion to be decriminalised in Malta.

Medical doctor Anthony Buttigieg, an ADPD candidate for the 1st and 10th districts, has called for mental health to be prioritised with increased investment for a better service within the community.

Buttigieg said that a mental health pandemic was unfolding throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with an exponential increase in mental health conditions that showed up the current service as being unable to cater for. 

“Mental health is many times treated as the Cinderella of the health service. More emphasis and resources are needed for mental health. Moreover, there is the urgent need for Monte Carmeli to be replaced by a new hospital with modern facilities for acute cases of mental health and that treat patients with dignity," Buttigieg said.

“More assistance should be granted to the Richmond Foundation and other NGOs that are giving a sterling service towards a better mental health within the community. Sheltered homes should be set up in every town and village. The community in which an individual would have grown in will remain of utmost support, whatever their problems.”

ADPD chairperson and candidate for the 4th and 9th district Carmel Cacopardo said the party’s sexual and reproductive health proposals are two-fold: “Firstly, there must be decriminalisation: no woman that undertakes an abortion – whatever the reason – should be treated as criminal. A woman who goes through an abortion needs our support. It is imperative that society shows empathy and not persecution.”

Empathy alone is however not enough, Cacopardo said. “It has to be translated into specific action: hence our proposal to decriminalise abortion in respect of all women who make such a choice. Removing from the Criminal Code the threat of criminal action by the state, even if this has rarely been used would, even on its own signal the willingness of our society to be of help to all those women who face difficulties during pregnancies.”

Cacopardo also said it was not clear what medical interventions were allowed in the case of pregnancy complications. “The law is not clear at all. ADPD is proposing that this is addressed through clear amendments so that it is clear as to the medical interventions permissible should complications developing during pregnancy be threatening to a woman’s life.”

Although it is not known that any woman has died in Malta as a result of complications arising during pregnancy, Cacopardo said there have been a number of ‘close cases’.

The only publicly documented case refers to a Maltese-Canadian woman that following intervention refusal at Mater Dei in 2019, supported by her insurance, had to be evacuated to a clinic in Paris with an air ambulance. “It is simply not acceptable that in a supposedly civilized country women are brought to death’s door,” Cacopardo said.

“It gets increasingly more urgent to place more emphasis on education relative to sexual and reproductive health at all levels of our educational system. This should lead to instilling a greater sense of responsibility in one and all.”