One genuinely hopes the three-part plan to close down Mount Carmel Hospital within four years materialises.

There has been so much talk, promises and plans to address mental healthcare in a holistic manner that one can never be too sure whether this will actually happen. Psychiatric patients and their immediate families can attest to this.

The pressure is now on Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela to deliver what he is promising.

Gross inadequacies remain in the mental health system and they need to be addressed and solved soonest. The consequences of maintaining the status quo can only be tragic, as, sadly, we have increasingly been witnessing.

The minister has announced a three-pronged approach to phase out Mount Carmel Hospital.

First, about 100 patients will be moved out of the present facility that is evidently no longer fit for purpose.

This will be followed by the reopening of the psychiatric unit at Mater Dei Hospital by the end of this year.

The third and final stage consists in the building of a new, acute psychiatric unit at Mater Dei, hopefully, within four years but subject to planning permits and building timelines.

Given the bizarre state of affairs prevalent at the Victorian-era hospital – for both patients and staff – four years may be deemed too long.

However, if Abela can guarantee the plans will be realised within the timeframes mentioned it would be worth the wait. A lot will depend on his pushing and, no doubt, he will be held responsible, certainly politically, for what happens. He has a lot to lose but also a lot to gain if he delivers… on time.

The new health minister deserves to be given the benefit of the doubt when he makes such categoric statements about improving mental healthcare. He is putting his own reputation at stake.

His predecessor, Chris Fearne, had also promised, in 2018, that a new mental health hospital near Mater Dei would be functioning by 2025. Just months away from that target date, however, and we are now told we will have to wait for another four years for that to happen.

There definitely needs to be a more modern structure and approach to handling mental health cases.

Only last summer, the Chamber of Psychologists had warned that the country is facing a “crisis in mental health services”.

More awareness, which is positive, was leading more people to seek government services but the waiting lists keep getting longer and psychologists are burned out.

Many, especially patients and their immediate family, will still agree with what an audit had established six years ago: “Mount Carmel Hospital and, by implication mental health in Malta, are still considered a second priority to the rest of the local public health sector.”

A few months earlier, the then chief executive officer of the Foundation for Medical Services had spoken of plans to transform Mount Carmel into a “top-notch” facility.

There is hardly any time to lose in doing what needs to be done. If permits for a shooting range facility can be speeded up by the powers-that-be, why not those for an acute psychiatric facility?

Calls were made in the past to offer acute psychiatric care through an acute general hospital setting. That appears to be Abela’s plans, though questions remain on whether that risks piling more pressure on Mater Dei and, so, slowing down the process.

Mental health demands robust and urgent attention and action. There is no more time to lose on lip-service and rhetoric.