Mental health care system set for overhaul

Community-based facilities prioritised

More emphasis will be put on supporting community-based facilities that provide services for mental health patients in Gauteng.

This is according to a new plan to overhaul the province’s mental health care system, which was presented during a provincial summit in Johannesburg yesterday to mark mental health care awareness month in October. Yesterday, Dr Monica Springfield from the office of the HOD in the Gauteng health department said her team had spent months developing the mental health recovery plan following the Life Esidimeni tragedy that resulted in the deaths of 144 psychiatric patients. Springfield said a lot of resources were previously being pumped into long-stay psychiatric facilities, however, most patients were living among their communities. “Before, most of the money was spent on specialised psychiatric hospitals and longstay hospitals, and that’s what led to the Life Esidimeni crisis because people felt that it wasn’t really delivering but it expensive,” she said. Springfield said the focus would be on providing more support for daycare facilities and improving residential care.

The recovery plan document also states that patients were being removed from facilities without properly developed community-based facilities, resulting in a high number of mentally ill people who are homeless or stuck in prisons. Gauteng health MEC Gwen Ramokgopa, who gave the keynote address, called on South Africans to take lessons from the HIV/Aids campaign when tackling mental illness. Ramokgopa said South Africa was able tackle HIV/Aids through a robust awareness campaign that brought communities, civil organisations and medical practitioners together in fighting the scourge.