Home care centre faces closure

State failed to pay subsidy for 3 months

An Ekurhuleni home caring for 115 mentally ill and disabled patients is on the verge of shutting its door after Gauteng health department failed to pay its subsidy for three months.

Vita Nova Centre in Daggafontein near Springs owes the council R204 743 for electricity and has been issued with a disconnection notice.

The department owes the centreR789 642.

The facility cannot feed its residents and has been pleading with patients’ families to take them back home until the centre’s finance stabilise.

Its 83 workers are also demoralised due to unpaid wages.

“The situation is getting beyond my control. As precaution, we asked the families to take some residents back but many can’t either due to unaffordability or work commitments,” said manager Michelle Immelman.

Only six patients went home but soon returned as their families could not cope.

The centre is one of 72 out of 132 that have not complied with the new licensing requirements that the department introduced last week following the health ombudsman’s recommendations in the Life Esidimeni tragedy report.

The licence requires that a centre provides a copy of its constitution, zoning certificate, occupancy certificate, certificate of acceptability of food handling, amongst others.

Failure to do so exposes centres to lawsuits and nonpayment of their subsidies.

A few kilometres away is San Michele Home in Brakpan. Their R2.2-million was only paid yesterday after they took the department to court.