None of the patients at Mount Carmel Hospital are in wards that are dangerous, Health Minister Chris Fearne insisted on Thursday. 

Fielding questions from journalists following a tour of a new ward set to open on Friday, Mr Fearne insisted works to renovate the run-down Attard hospital are well underway. 

The island’s only mental health hospital has repeatedly made the headlines for the wrong reasons in recent years as its state continued to deteriorate despite assurances that it is being upgraded.

Earlier this month, the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) issued directives to its members after claims patients were being moved onto corridors in an attempt to tackle bed shortages at the facility which has been partially condemned.

Earlier this year, Times of Malta reported that around three-quarters of the wards at the Attard psychiatric hospital, built in 1861, have condemned ceilings.

Attempts by Times of Malta to clarify the minister's claim that no patients were in danger, in light of the fact that nurses there have repeatedly insisted otherwise, proved futile. 

The minister did, however, insist that the government's plans to renovate the hospital were already bearing fruit. On Friday, he said, a group of 26 patients will be moved to the newly-renovated ward. This is the second upgraded ward that has welcomed patients in recent months, he went on. 

Meanwhile, some 200 patients who were found to have been moved to the hospital despite not requiring mental health treatment have already been relocated to other facilities. Of these, 80 were moved to hostels within the community while the remaining 120 to Casa Maria, a private residential home. 

Despite the efforts to move people out of the facility, some 350 patients still require treatment at the hospital, the minister said.