Hostel for female mental health patients opens in Attard

A hostel for female mental health patients, the first of its kind in Malta, has been opened in Attard. It will accommodate ten people who have been living at Mount Carmel for so long that they have lost independent-living skills, and will be run the Richmond Foundation NGO and the government – the former which paid for the hostel’s construction and the latter which will fork out the funds for the patients’ treatment.

The hostel will include single and double rooms, as well as bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, a sitting room, a washroom, and a garden. The patients will be under constant surveillance and will be taught basic everyday skills, such as cooking, cleaning, shopping and planning.  

Opening the hostel in an official ceremony, health minister Chris Fearne said that the government believes in shifting mental healthcare to community services.

“One of the greatest problems in the mental healthcare sector is that a number of patients have been living for so long at Mount Carmel that they have lost the ability to live by themselves,” he said. “Such hostels will allow these patients to re-integrate into society.”

The Attard hostel will become the third community hostel jointly run by the government and Richmond. A fourth community hostel is operated by the government and the Fondazzjoni Suret il-Bniedem NGO.