The mental alertness of residents at St Vincent de Paul Residence is being assessed as the care home plans as part of a pass-based system to decide whether a resident can be allowed to freely leave their ward.

It comes after an 83-year-old went missing after he was able to walk out of the home unaccompanied at 3am almost a month ago. 

Sources within the home said doctors will be assessing residents who have some form of mobility and measuring their cognitive abilities.

Those who score high will be given a pass that will allow them to move freely within the home and leave the premises as they please. Those with a poor score will not be allowed to leave their current ward unless they are supervised.

Another pass category may be introduced that allows some residents to move within the home’s grounds but not leave unless they are supervised or accompanied by relatives.

These form part of a range of measures to step up security at the state’s care home after, last month, one resident went missing.

Questions sent to the active ageing ministry about the system to be adopted remained unanswered.

However, nurses’ union head Paul Pace confirmed that the pass system would be introduced.

He added that security guards will be placed outside each of the 36 open wards. They will ensure that residents are allowed movement according to their pass category.

The decision was part of a raft of new measures which were meant to step up security after the disappearance of 83-year-old Charlie Fino from the home for the elderly last month and an apparent suicide attempt by another resident a few days later.

Fino, who had dementia, was last seen leaving St Vincent de Paul’s main gate at around 3am on June 28 and remains missing. 

The hospital, which is carrying out an internal investigation, later issued instructions not allowing residents to leave their wards. The nurses’ union has dubbed the restriction “inhumane”.

Last week resident Joseph Scerri, 93, fought back against the “unacceptable” new rules. Scerri told the management of St Vincent de Paul Residence in a formal complaint that the new rules are “an encroachment on my personal liberty”.