Nurses have come out against NGO calls to shut down Mount Carmel hospital, arguing that countries which have tried to shift mental healthcare to the community have seen systems collapses and patients suffer.  

“There is no doubt that Mount Carmel Hospital with all the structural defects [it has] has to be upgraded,” the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses said on Saturday, in a statement which suggested NGOs were being disrespectful to nurses by saying the hospital should be shut down.

Mental health NGOs and professionals have in recent weeks upped calls for the Attard-based Mount Carmel to shut down for good, saying that the facility is not up to standard and that Malta should shift much of its mental healthcare to community-based services.

Those calls have not gone down well with the MUMN, which said its members were “shocked by  these  irresponsible  comments given  to  the  media  by NGOs”.

“When other countries  used  the  approach  of  closing  down  institutions  such  as  Mt.  Carmel Hospital, the patients were the ones who suffered most and the whole system of mental health care literally collapsed,” the MUMN said, without elaborating further.

Evacuate wards 'by September'

Concerns about the structural integrity of Mount Carmel Hospital reached parliament last month, with hospital administrators telling MPs about dire conditions inside the facility.

Health Minister Chris Fearne had admitted in 2018 that some ceilings at the hospital were dangerous. In April, Times of Malta reported that around three out of every four wards at the crumbling hospital have condemned ceilings.

Repairs at the hospital are currently underway, and on Saturday the MUMN said that it was insisting that the worst affected wards had to be completely evacuated by the end of September.

“It is not acceptable for either patients or staff working in these wards to have works postponed further,” the union said, adding that it would be publishing timelines which would reveal whether or not hospital management was living up to its word.

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