Life Esidimeni warnings ignored

The fatal decision to move hundreds of Gauteng psychiatric patients to ill-equipped facilities was such a rush job that no structures were in place to pay their new caregivers.

The move that ended up killing more than 118 patients happened despite five letters from the SA Psychiatric Society, family members and other civil society groups warning it would have disastrous effects.

Some patients had been treated at Life Esidimeni clinics for more than 10 years.

Also, with the original timelines given, which were eventually delayed by three months, the Life Healthcare Group warned it would not have sufficient time to give staff retrenchment notices. More than 700 caregivers at these facilities lost their jobs.

"Why would you move people before processes to pay money were in place? What was the big pressure to do what you did?" asked former deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke. He is chairing arbitration hearings in Johannesburg to find out why so many patients died in badly run NGOs and to give the families closure and financial recompense.

The director of the project to move all psychiatric patients from their home, Levy Mosenogi, testified at the hearing on Tuesday.

The NGOs were supposed to be paid R112 per day per patient but he said some did not even have bank accounts when the patients were moved.

Mosenogi didn't have an answer to Justice Moseneke's question. "I don't have an excuse why we had to hurry it. My initial thought was it [the move] should be done in phases."

He said he was acting on instruction from health MEC Qedani Mahlangu and the then head of the Gauteng health department, Barney Selebano.

 Mosenogi said the reasons for ending the Life Esidimeni project were "cost-cutting" and because the auditor-general asked questions about the same contract with the same supplier every year.