Two 14-year-old children are presently being kept at Mount Carmel Hospital’s seclusion ward, which is intended for adults, Parliamentary Secretary for Health Chris Fearne confirmed in parliament this evening.

Mr Fearne was replying to a parliamentary question by opposition spokesman for health Claudio Grech, who sought to find out how many children were being kept in adult wards within Mount Carmel Hospital.

Children receiving treatment at the hospital are typically kept at the Young People’s Unit, but a number are kept in adult wards at the recommendation of the consultants responsible. This was the case with the two 14-year-olds in question, Mr Fearne confirmed in parliament.

Earlier this year, Mr Grech had said that such practices were unacceptable after revealing that a 10-year-old child was being kept at the seclusion ward – the child was moved out of the ward in short order. This time round, the MP recalled that the government had expressed its opposition to keeping children in adult wards, and questioned what it was doing to address it.

In response, Mr Fearne noted that Mr Grech himself had pointed out that the problem has existed for some time, and insisted that in contrast to the previous government, this government was actually taking action – an argument he brought up repeatedly in reply to further supplementary questions from the Nationalist MP.

He explained that three structures close to Mount Carmel Hospital were identified as a possible location for children in need of psychiatric treatment.

At one point, Mr Grech asked whether the Health Ministry was willing to consider a recommendation made by the mental health commissioner to place such children in a ward at Mater Dei Hospital in the interim, but this question was not addressed by Mr Fearne.