Having a mental health check-up should be as normal as going for a visit to your doctor, Lydia Abela told a conference on mental health.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But to change our culture, we needed to start with children, she added.<\/p>\n
“I want to see a country that normalises mental health check-ups and strengthens the culture of prevention,” said Abela, wife of prime minister Robert Abela.<\/p>\n
“We want our children to grow up in a less stressful environment, but we also need to give them the mental tools to face life\u2019s challenges as they grow older.”<\/p>\n
Abela was addressing the National Conference on Quality of Life and Mental Health, organised as part of the Nitkellem\u00a0festival at Fort St Elmo.<\/p>\n
Abela organised the festival together with the government and in collaboration with the Richmond Foundation, SOS Malta, Dar Kenn g\u0127al Sa\u0127\u0127tek, actress Simone Spiteri, and ultra-endurance swimmer Neil Agius. The Health Ministry, Special Olympics Malta, Teatru Malta, Kelma Kelma Nota Nota, as well as several mental health experts and activists.<\/p>\n
Abela insisted the event was not a “ceremonial festival”, but a manifestation of open dialogue and reflection.<\/p>\n
The real stories shared during the conference showed that mental health did not discriminate, she added.<\/p>\n
Abela listed measures already in place, including plans to open a new psychiatric hospital and free courses in mental health first aid within local communities. Still,\u00a0there remains a continuous need to view mental health not only as a medical issue, but as a way of life, she noted.<\/p>\n
She also warned that while social media has many advantages, excessive use can have negative effects, leading to anxiety, depression, and isolation. Addiction to social media, Abela added, has become a real issue that must be addressed with a sense of responsibility.<\/p>\n
Abela urged people to always take care of one another, as this is how one could build a strong society that ensured everyone could reach their full potential.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having a mental health check-up should be as normal as going for a visit to your doctor, Lydia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-222815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}