It is called number 7. The 'it' was once a she. And before it was a she, the 'she' had a name. 

The name is now forgotten, but  you can still find it if you look for it. It is scribbled inside a file. 

The file is a very thick tattered contraption. It has curled up corners and dismal chromatography patterns on the cover.  The chromatography patterns came out of a drop of blood and black ink on which water had been dropped many times at different times.

Number seven has a broken tile in the centre of her world.

Her world is made up of four walls which peel constantly like the skin of sunburnt children in a Maltese summer. There is also a window with  criss-cross bars like the grid on which she plays oxo. She plays oxo with her dead sister.

Then there is a door with a small window which sometimes has eyes and sometimes doesn’t.

The door protests wildly every time it opens and closes several times a day. 

The shrieking door terrifies number  seven, and number seven screams when the door shrieks and because of the shrieks and the screams the people in white  screech and put in more burning liquid through needles in her backside, and she screams and trashes out more.

There is a lot of sweat, and then the nightmares begin until the fly-poop-covered solitary bulb hanging down from the ceiling comes to the rescue.

Dusty bulb comes to the rescue by shining light into her eyes to wake her up from the nightmares on the other side.

When she wakes up number seven walks in circles around the broken tile. She looks down at her bare feet and wonders who exchanged her beautiful milky white toes for ten wrinkled craggy sticks stuck in ancient feet. 

She tries to remember how it happened but cannot recall. 

So she plays oxo with her beautiful sister Alice instead. Alice's toes are still white and pretty and her hair is as golden and curly as ever.

Alice likes the chequered oxo board. Maroon and cream, cream and maroon and one broken in the middle. 

They always laugh when they come to the broken tile. Then they switch to playing beads because it’s a perfect hole for beads.

Alice's sister had been a perfectly normal, brilliant child. As was Alice.

They went to school , laughed and played and did all the things children do. Every night their mother read them bedtime stories and they indulged in the most wondrous dreams as they drifted away into peaceful sleep.

One night Alice's sister had a terrible dream. It was pitch darkness. Someone with a big hand covering her mouth and most of her face was pushing her down. There was a flattening  breath shattering weight and a stabbing pain  deep in her belly.

The stabbing kept coming and coming . Then she passed out. When she woke up she had sticky blood and glue between her legs. 

She told her mum about the dream, but the dream kept coming back.

Then one day little sister Alice did not wake up. Everybody said she had died from a seizure but Lisa had seen the blood stained sheet when they washed Alice's limp body. After her sister's death Lisa went berserk .  She drifted away, recoiling unto herself.

She became a 'psychiatric  case'. 

And there was no proper psychological or psychiatric support for traumatised children. 

The system turned her into a number, it turned her into a 'cranky' old woman, then  into number seven.

Meanwhile there is Xarabank on TV.  There is Michael Falzon singing praises to the great leader PM Joseph Muscat, and hurling insults at the National Audit Office, the same NAO paid by our taxes to make sure that those same taxes and national wealth is being used properly,  particularly so that the most vulnerable in our society will not want.

None of us care if JM  aspires to be the Maltese version of Kim il Sung, driving poor politicians like Michael Falzon to suck up to him so  as to be left with a shred of political life. What we do care about is that Kim il Sung or not, our money is not squandered on stinky deals ,shadowy contracts and jewel encrusted presents to people who don't need them.

What we care about is that corruption does not devour the chances of our people to live dignified lives wherever they are and whoever they are.

We just want our money in the hands of the good people who want to make a difference, who need to make a difference, and who can make a difference.

I quote the following report from the media: “Mental Health Services chairman Anton Grech said change was extremely difficult as everyone tended to have their comfort zones.

“In our department, the problem is that we are still in the civil service,” he said, highlighting the excessive red tape which muzzled the system.

Finances was a struggle, he said, adding that Mount Carmel Hospital faced debts amounting to €7 million. Moreover, chronic and acute cases were being treated together in the same wards.

“Two years ago, I had proposed the setting up of better acute mental health facilities. Now, I can say I’m seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel,” Dr Grech said.'

Let us give our Mental Health Services more than a 'little' light at the end of the tunnel. 

Let us use public money wisely, responsibly so that we will have no more number sevens or eights or nines. Our mentally compromised patients need our voices and our actions to have a real chance of leading a humane life. We have failed them and ourselves for long enough.

There is no doubt that we have the best professionals.  Statistics say that we also have the means because our economy is booming, so what is holding us back from implementing a full reform of our mental health services in the direction which is obviously needed?

Political will is needed. Political will is needed to channel the funds into indispensable investment in the fabric of our society.

Political will is needed to curb the siphoning off of precious finances by evil corrupt groups, and direct the full force of whatever this country affords into the prevention of disease, mental and otherwise , by timely  wide-ranging structured support and by affording  the proper treatment in time and in the right milieu as is necessary.

Where there is a will there's a way. Let us find that away. Remember that  your child, or my child can be the next number seven, hidden away, forgotten, unless we keep up the pressure on the powers that be to deliver in our name, with our money.