A rehab facility that puts patients in handcuffs and solitary confinement, denies them crucial medication and believes religion is the cure for mental illness is under fire after a disoriented patient fell while trying to run away - resulting in his leg being amputated.
House Regeneration 7, which has been operating in Pretoria for 10 years and is not registered, is said to tell patients that depression is a sin and medication is witchcraft.
Ella Ciszewski said she had booked her son Sebastian, 41, into the rehabilitation centre following his two-decade battle with mental illness, which had involved bouts of depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and a stack of pills.
She said she had been naive at the time and wanted to try and wean him off his medication.
"They said that after a year Sebastian would be free of [prescription] drugs," said Ciszewski.
But three months later he was in hospital having his leg amputated.
Ciszewski said she had been told in June that during one of the daily fitness sessions at the facility, Sebastian couldn't cope and begged to stop. In a confused and psychotic state he began to run until he fell three metres down a hill into a river and broke his leg.
Her son told her that a staff member had dragged him out and beaten him in the name of discipline.
Sebastian spent six weeks in hospital and his leg was amputated below the knee.
Advertised as an addiction treatment centre, the facility also treats people with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
Ciszewski said House Regeneration 7 had not phased Sebastian off his medication properly and that he received the drugs erratically, sometimes not at all.House Regeneration 7 founder Ado Krige - a former drug addict and satanist before he found God - defended his facility, saying "this woman is trying to extort money from us". He said her allegations were "false".
Krige is a proponent of belief therapy and holds a PhD in biblical counselling from Therapon University, which is based in the US Virgin Isles. The South African Qualification Authority, which evaluates foreign qualifications, does not recognise the university.
In January 2014 the Gauteng department of social development notified Krige that the centre was operating in contravention of the Prevention of and Treatment for Substance Abuse Act and must close down.
For many years Krige refused to register because he said the act did not make provision for the biblical faith system of therapy, only for secular models of psychology and psychiatry. In August he applied to be registered with the department. The application is pending.
Ciszewski said Sebastian told her he had been taken in handcuffs and chains to a dentist, and that there was a room at the facility for keeping patients who misbehaved in solitary confinement.
This was confirmed by Mercia Keetch, an educational Christian counsellor who sent her son to the facility about eight years ago for addiction to Ketamine, a potent pain-reliever...