The National Psychiatric Hospital is a priority hospital for reconstruction and the government is now engaged in mobilising funds for this, Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy has said.

The minister was answering a number of questions about the hospital posed by PNCR parliamentarian Debra Backer, including what provisions were being made to improve its deplorable state.

In answers provided in parliament on Friday, the minister said that the hospital has been neglected for a number of years and had become a “national disgrace” by 1990. “In spite of rehabilitation work that was done and other improvements and the construction of several new chalets to house the persons living there, the conditions have remained unacceptable,” the minister said.

He disclosed that several of the old buildings are at present being demolished for safety reasons and in preparation for new construction.

He said that from January a team has been working to clean and weed around the buildings in order to improve the environmental aspect of the compound.

Meanwhile, a contract for the debugging of all of the residential buildings has been concluded and work has started. There are some 155 persons in the hospital, 100 of whom, the minister said, have been classified as persons who could live at home.