Malta – The humanly demeaning and degrading situation at Mount Carmel Hospital – (The Malta Independent on Sunday)
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Patients lining up in a row waiting for their medicine; pills distributed in little transparent cups, with nurses watching over them; patients being asked to open their mouths to make sure they have swallowed their medicine. Scenes from the Florence Nightingale era, you would imagine.
No, this is the day-to-day reality seen in Mount Carmel Hospital, a healthcare professional tells The Malta Independent on Sunday.
On condition of anonymity, the healthcare professional described these methods as “so degrading”. Even the way the patients are served food is demeaning, he said, explaining why it is so important that if the hospital is to be moved, then considerable investment needs to be made in re-training the staff.
This newsroom also spoke to another healthcare professional working in Mount Carmel Hospital who said that “there is a serious problem of homelessness”. He pointed out that there are a lot of people waiting for placements.
There are some people who are unwell for a few weeks, for example, and then they get better and have nowhere to go. “They remain in hospital because there is nowhere else for them to be homed. There are a lot of situations where these people end up without a home: for example, because either their family cannot accept their behaviour, or due to separation issues or financial problems,” he said.
There are also children who are waiting for placements, he told us. For example, because they suffer from autism and none the homes available would be suitable for their needs, they stay in Mount Carmel Hospital.
“They cannot be placed in a standard care home but they should not be in the hospital if they do not need to be,” he said, pointing out that only those in the acute wards need to be hospitalised and the rest could easily be in a supported home.
Earlier this month, the Maltese Association of Psychiatry (MAP) agrees wholeheartedly with the sentiment that Mount Carmel Hospital is not fit for the treatment of patients and has been unfit for this purpose for several years now. The MAP, in a statement following an interview given by psychiatrist Anton Grech to TVM, said it completely supported the plans to phase out Mount Carmel Hospital which is unsafe and in a dilapidated state and to develop a new acute psychiatric hospital which is conducive to the delivery of high quality mental health care. All modern mental health services are developed to ensure parity with physical health services and therefore reduce stigmatisation.
