Partit Demokratiku today welcomed all initiatives to safeguard the health and safety of patients who suffer from mental disorders and, since its foundation in 2016, has been very critical of the system of service provision offered to these patients and their families. The much needed structural changes at Mount Carmel Hospital to ensure privacy and dignity of patients have again hit the news.

Mental Health services should be community oriented and the environment of our psychiatric hospital must be conducive to the patients’ wellbeing, the PD said.

Any strategy has to be backed up by adequate finances, human resources, processes supported by best practices and the appropriate technology. Health care systems are no exception and timely delivery is of the essence, the party added.

Partit Demokratiku noted that government has failed to follow its own mental health care roadmap and is now fast forwarding its policy, when it has not even allocated an adequate 2019 mental health care budget nor the finances for the building of a psychiatric hospital in Mater Dei Health Campus.