The Annual Report for 2014 of the Office of the Commissioner for Mental Health was presented to the minister and parliamentary secretary concerned in March but it has not yet been presented in parliament, this newsroom is informed.
The Mental Health Act stipulates that the annual report must be presented and discussed by the parliamentary committee concerned within two months after the ministers receive the report from the commissioner.
Speaking to The Malta Independent, Mental Health Commissioner John Cachia said the report was forwarded to the Minister for Energy and Health Konrad Mizzi and to Parliamentary Secretary for Health Chris Fearne in March 2015.
“Our Annual Report cannot be in the public domain until it is formally tabled by the Minister in the House of Representatives as required by the Mental Health Act,” he explained.
The Act specifically states that the Commissioner must ‘present to the Minister an annual report of his activity which shall be placed on the Table of the House of Representatives by the Minister and shall be discussed in the Permanent Committee for Social Affairs within two months of receipt’.
But a spokesperson for Mr Fearne said that the report will be presented in parliament this month.
In October 2013, on the occasion of World Mental Health Day, significant sections of the new Mental Health Act, (Cap 525 of the Laws of Malta) came into force. The remaining sections were meant to come into force a year later. The new law replaced the old Mental Health Law, Cap 262 which has been in force since 1981.
The new Act is more extensive and far-reaching. The new legislation introduces the concepts of rights of users and their carers and the establishment of a Commissioner to safeguard those rights.
The new law includes high elements of focus on patients and their needs and mirrors changes in knowledge, perceptions and attitudes towards mental illness and mental health. It brings about new models of care practices including reduction in hospital stay and more community based services. The law introduces specific sections on mental capacity, minors (people under 18 years of age) and the administration of special treatments. It introduces the concepts of community treatment and social inclusion.
In 2013 Gertrude A. Buttigieg – the Communication Officer for the Office of the Commissioner for Mental Health – wrote in The Malta Independent that the history of mental health is tainted by a bad reputation of people with mental health problems being treated as witches and as people possessed by evil spirits. Over the years there is documented evidence of people with mental health problems being unnecessarily held in prisons and in asylums.
She wrote: “In the 20th century considerable improvement was made in the care and treatment of mental health disorders and people were moved to hospitals. Still there was a lot of restrictive and ‘harsh’ treatment which was at times considered as brutal and inhuman.
“The new trends of care are to give acute treatment in hospital if necessary and to move towards a more community approach. The new law aims to see people with mental health problems as full and active members of the society,” she wrote.