Despite a scathing health ombudsman report on the deaths of mentally ill patients in Gauteng‚ Eastern Cape Social Development MEC Nancy Sihlwayi has insisted she will go ahead with a controversial plan to move Port Elizabeth frail care patients to non-government organisations (NGOs).
She said yesterday she was not swayed by ombudsman Professor Malegapuru Makgoba’s report that led to the resignation of Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu.
Sihlwayi’s intransigence follows an outcry towards the end of last year when the provincial Department of Social Development announced plans to move 240 patients from the only two fully state-funded frail-care centres in Port Elizabeth‚ run by Life Esidimeni – a subsidiary of Life Healthcare – and rehouse them with NGOs.
- Aaron Motsoaledi must brief Pres Zuma over mental patientsPresident Jacob Zuma will be apprised by the Minister of Health‚ Dr Aaron Motsoaledi‚ on steps to be taken to ensure that utmost care‚ support‚ empathy and expertise are made available to patients requiring mental health care.
Makgoba found yesterday that the Gauteng Department of Health was negligent when it moved 1‚900 patients from Life Healthcare facilities to private homes run by unlicensed NGOs‚ calling the plan reckless‚ unwise and flawed.
He found that the Gauteng move had led to the deaths of at least 94 patients.
- Some mentally ill patients died just days after leaving Life Healthcare EsidimeniAn elderly woman suffering from schizophrenia and dementia spent 58 years as a patient at Life Healthcare Esidimeni. She died just 19 days after being transferred to an NGO in Gauteng.
But Sihlwayi said yesterday: “Our situation is not the same thing. That was health. I don’t deal with sick people.” Sihlwayi said she had seen the report but was going ahead with her plans regardless.
In the meantime‚ the department is barred from moving anybody from the centres without the permission of Advocate Sarah Sephton‚ who was appointed as a curator for the patients.
- EFF lay murder charges against former health MECEconomic Freedom Fighters members in the Gauteng legislature have laid murder charges against former Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu and the entire Gauteng cabinet after it was revealed in a damning report that 94 mental patients died due to the provincial health department’s negligence.
Sihlwayi said her department had had to readvertise a call for proposals on Saturday as only six NGOs indicated last year that they could take patients from the frail care centres.
She is determined to finalise the process by the end of the month.
Read the story at The Herald.
-TMG Digital/The Herald
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