Lack of adequate facilities for underage mental health sufferers - MP

Claudio Grech • children's care at Mt Carmel mental health hospital - Video: Ray Attard

Nationalist MP Claudio Grech has called for the Mental Health Commisioner to investigate allegations that a 10-year-old child was placed in a seclusion ward at Mount Carmel Hospital.

Addressing a press conference on the need of an adequate facility for underage mental health sufferers, Grech said as the shadow minister for health, he always sought consensus on health issues.

"Whatever the circumstances, such actions are unacceptable," said Grech. "This is not a partisan issue and I am not trying to make one. It is high time for politicians and stakeholders to come together and seek new adequate alternatives."

Grech made it a point to highlight that he was not criticising the present administration but that it was the fault of a system that was never properly tackled over the years. He urged politicians and stakeholders to come together in order to provide adequate facilities to minors who suffer from mental health conditions.

"The child could have been placed there as a result of a clinical decision. This shouldn't be acceptable in today's day and age. And when this happens, it means that the politicians and society are failing these children," he said.

Grech will also call on the parliament's permanent committee for health to discuss how child mental health sufferers could be placed in a better environment that catered for both the treatment and education of these minors.

The Nationalist MP also urged his party to focus more on policy rather than personal issues in order for the Opposition to show it could be an alternative government.

"Criticising the government does not make the PN a negative opposition but a constructive one. For the Opposition to show it can be an alternative government, it must focus on policy rather personal issues," Grech said.

The Nationalist MP expressed full trust in the party's leadership: "It is easy to criticise the party's work when you are on the outside but the party's leadership has done a lot of work."

Grech argued that the PN had a strong foundation on where to build but he reiterated that it should focus on proposing alternative policies rather than stopping at criticising government's work.

"I don't have much experience as an MP [having been elected for the first time in 2013] but I will continue contributing in the best way possible," he said.