Patients give thumbs up to mental health care

People with mental health problems and their families are satisfied with the quality of care available in Malta but there is a need for more community services, a report by the Richmond Foundation has concluded.

The report, which was launched yesterday, stresses the importance of strengthening health centre services so that general practitioners would be able to identify mental health problems at an early stage, with the result that patients would be given early treatment.

The report was launched during a conference on mental health community services in Europe, which is continuing today. The conference is the culmination of a year of work carried out by partners from Malta, Italy and Lithuania, and aims to give participants a greater understanding of the issues concerning the provision of mental health services in Europe. The project was carried out with the support of the European Community in the framework of the Grundvig Action of the Socrates Programme.

Richmond Foundation chief executive officer Doris Gauci said the report indicated a lack of research on mental health problems and related issues locally. It also emphasised the need for the service user and the carers being involved in policy planning and decision-making processes.

"The need for public awareness and education came out strongly," she said. It also emphasised the need to fight stigma and educate people of all ages - starting from school children - about mental health problems.

Work places also need to develop a mental health policy, she stressed.

Ms Gauci said this weekend's conference was also aimed at raising awareness among the Maltese public about the situation regarding mental health.

Parliamentary Secretary Helen D'Amato said the outcome of the conference will be used to lobby the European Parliament and the European Commission to encourage them to legislate for minimum standards in the field of community mental health services in the member states.

Speaking during the conference, Mrs D'Amato said mental illness has been "profoundly destructive to people's lives" for far too long. She said although mental illnesses are just as real as other illnesses, fear, little knowledge and stigma persist and result in lost opportunities for many sufferers.

"Stigma tragically deprives people of their dignity and interferes with their full participation in society. And it is precisely this stigma which we have to overcome," she said.

Mrs D'Amato said stakeholders and the government have put a lot of emphasis on education, prevention and rehabilitation. She said this led to few people now having qualms about regularly visiting psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers and doing so without the fear of having to be institutionalised in order to receive the required cure, care and rehabilitation.

The Prime Minister's wife, Catherine Gonzi, who is the deputy chairman of the Richmond Foundation, spoke about her experience as a relative of a person who suffered from mental illness and emphasised the need for information about the illness for both patients and carers.

She said the public needed to be educated on issues connected with mental health so that when a problem arose, they would be able to deal with it. The prejudice and fear associated with mental illness should be eliminated through information and education starting from schoolchildren.