Patient in morgue for over a year
Seven Life Esidimeni patients lie unclaimed, one has no ID document
One of the seven unclaimed Life Esidimeni patients has been lying in a morgue for 16 months.
The arbitration hearing into the tragedy heard yesterday that a man who died in May or June last year had not been buried.
Cullinan Care and Rehabilitation Centre social worker Daphney Ndlovu told the hearing that the lengthy delay in burying the man was due to not having his relatives’ contact details or an identity document.
Ndlovu said there were also five bodies at a morgue in Mamelodi and another in Bronkhorstspruit.
“We tried checking with the Home Affairs Department and the SA Social Security Agency. We have exhausted all sources but we are not hopeless,” she said.
Retired deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke, who heads the arbitration, asked Ndlovu why the state-owned centre had an NGO on its property.
Anchor House is on the Cullinan Care and Rehabilitation Centre’s property and is among the NGOs where Life Esidimeni patients died.
Ndlovu said Anchor House was at the centre’s premises illegally.
The hearing also heard that relatives of some of the 141 victims were not timeously informed about their deaths. Another 59 patients are untraceable.
Nearly 1 400 psychiatric patients were transferred to various unlicensed nonprofit organisations after former Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu terminated the department’s contract with Life Esidimeni care centre “to cut costs”.
The family of Joseph Gumede, who
‘‘ Man who died in May or June last year has not been buried yet
died in July last year, was only told about his death in February this year.
Ndlovu said she remembered having to tell Gumede’s family that he had died months earlier which she found extremely traumatic.
One of Gumede’s relatives even threatened to kill her, Ndlovu testified.
She said she pleaded with them not to “kill the messenger”.
Another patient, Charity Ratsotso, died in July last year but his family was only informed in January this year.
His brother Kevin was not given satisfactory answers when he went to enquire about Charity’s whereabouts in December.
Another patient, Busisiwe Shabalala, died of hyperthermia caused by severe dehydration, according to her death certificate.
Ndlovu, however, denied that the centre ever ran out of water and food.
The Cullinan Care and Rehabilitation Centre had capacity to house 150 mentally ill patients but ended up with nearly 270.
Ndlovu said Gauteng health department officials forced the centre to take in more patients than was expected.
She admitted that the process of moving patients was not smooth.