When Queensland’s new youth mental health facility opens in early 2020, the state will finally have the mental health facilities it needs, its former chief psychiatrist told reporters on Monday afternoon.

However, that will be six years after the previous LNP government closed the Barrett Adolescent Centre at Wacol in January 2014.

Mental health advocate Katherine Moodie at the launch of the replacement Barrett Adolescent Centre which was closed in January 2014. Credit:Tony Moore

Until it closed, the Barrett Adolescent Centre was Queensland’s only mental health facility for adolescents that offered a live-in facility.

Construction of its purpose-built replacement $27 million mental health facility for adolescents at Prince Charles Hospital finally began on Monday afternoon, 11 months after it was promised work would start.