Outcry over the deaths of 36 psychiatric patients

The Health Ombudsman is to investigate allegations of the deaths of 36 psychiatric patients in Gauteng.

Johannesburg - The Health Ombudsman is to investigate allegations of the deaths of 36 psychiatric patients in Gauteng.

On Wednesday, the ombudsman said Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi had asked the body to probe the allegations that 36 psychiatric patients in Gauteng died after they were transferred from the Life Esidimeni Healthcare centre into the care of NGOs early this year.

Motsoaledi said the decision to ask the Health Ombudsman to investigate the allegations was taken “after a marathon consultation meeting” with Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu on Wednesday afternoon.

He said the MEC had given him an updated report on the transfer of psychiatric patients and had asked for intervention by the national department.

“These are the kinds of cases that must be thoroughly investigated by the Office of the Health Ombudsman and provide us with a report and recommendations for us to act,” Motsoaledi said.

“The Office of the Health Ombudsman is established to investigate these kinds of cases.”

Earlier this year, Motsoaledi named Professor Malegapuru Makgoba as South Africa’s first health ombudsman.

The Gauteng Health Department is to answer how it came about that the over 1 400 patients who were transferred from Esidimeni facilities to 122 NGOs were discharged with no clinical files citing their medical history, and whether this played a role in the 36 deaths that have occurred in some of the NGOs in the past few months.

On Tuesday, Mahlangu admitted during a question and answer session in the Gauteng legislature that the department had not been given the patients’ clinical files prior to moving them from Life Esidimeni facilities.

“The fact is that we did not have clinical files when the patients were given over to our health facilities or to the NGOs. We did not have any sense what the other pathologies or other ailments were and the history of those patients.

“Yes, indeed, 36 patients have died in the period and the families have been engaged.

“The majority of them do not even have families, and the department is working to give them a dignified funeral,” Mahlangu said.

But for the South African Depression and Anxiety Group’s spokesperson, Cassey Chambers, Mahlangu’s explanation was simply not good enough, and the department needed to take more responsibility.

“It was the first I heard of it (no clinical files) on Tuesday when we started engaging the MEC on the transfer of patients, she assured us all patients would be sent to the NGOs with their records and medication,” she said.

“So now they are admitting that effectively the patients weren’t getting medication.”

The DA has called on Mahlangu to “resign or be fired” for the deaths of the 36 psychiatric patients.

DA MPL Jack Bloom echoed Chambers’s concern, adding that the “whole thing was shambolic” and a result of “extremely poor planning”.

“Thirty-six people dying is not normal,” he said.

“It’s a huge number and you can understand it happened through negligence ... how do you know which medicines a patient is taking without a clinical file? MEC Qedani may have to resign over this.”

For more than 40 years the private facility has provided long-term chronic mental healthcare to thousands of patients in Gauteng under contract from the provincial government.

Last year in October, Mahlangu announced that the contract with Lifehealthcare Esidimeni had become unaffordable. As a result the contract was cancelled and the private facilities closed on 31 March.

At the time, the health MEC said in 2014/15 the province spent R323 million to treat 2 378 patients at the private facilities.

“The department cannot afford this,” said Mahlangu, adding the move would facilitate community care, human dignity and community integration.

On Thursday Bloom blamed the health MEC for the crisis.

“She persisted in cancelling the long-running contract with Lifehealthcare earlier this year despite warnings that more time was needed to find suitable alternative facilities,” said Bloom.

Bloom said Mahlangu said NGOs would accommodate 591 patients and 1193 patients would be placed at the Weskoppies, Sterkfontein, Tshwane District and Cullinan Care hospitals, as well as refurbished parts of the Transvaal Memorial Institution (TMI), Pinnar and Old Germiston Hospital.

“The promised refurbishment of TMI, Pinnar and Old Germiston Hospital did not happen, and 1 002 patients were placed with NGOs, which was far higher than the number originally announced,” said Bloom.

“Despite protests and complaints by relatives about the poor facilities at many NGOs, Mahlangu claimed that they had been properly vetted and were monitored to ensure good care.”

The MEC had previously made veiled accusations that all was “not hunky-dory” at the Life Esidimeni facilities, but on Tuesday she attempted to elaborate on that.

“When the patients were discharged, all of them walked out with one set of clothes... Some walked out of the facility with one pair of shoes or without any shoes.

“Do not make (it seem) as if the Life Esidimeni thing was hunky-dory, and patients were living in harmony and all of that,” she said.

And while Chambers agreed, saying “I don’t think everything was hunky-dory”, she asked: “But how were those concerns and issues being addressed? Either way, that’s history.”

For Dr Mvuyiselo Talatala, head of the SA Society of Psychiatrists, the deaths of the patients was an example of the unintended consequences of moving too many patients at once.

vuyo.mkize@inl.co.za

The Star and African News Agency