Costly health fix-up

MENTAL PATIENTS: ‘WE ARE NOW DOING THINGS ACCORDING TO THE BOOK’

What was meant to save money on the sick, will now cost department millions.

Government will be forking out more than R40 million per year for 300 psychiatric patients in Gauteng as the department begins to implement the health ombudsman’s recommendations, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said yesterday.

“The government is going to annually pay R46 million for the patients,” he said.

Motsoaledi said this during the transfer of the first group of 27 patients to Clinix Selby Park Hospital, near central Johannesburg, where 300 psychiatric patients are being moved from unlicensed non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Clinix Health Group owns and manages seven private hospitals across the country that specialise in maternity and antenatal clinics, neonatal intensive care, radiology and pathology services – with theatres, ICU facilities, as well as on-site pharmacies.

Selby Park Hospital will have a contingent of psychiatrists, two full-time doctors, a social worker, and will add more staff complements as more psychiatric patients are brought in to fill its 300 beds.

Addressing the media at the hospital, Motsoaledi said the provincial department was now doing the transfers by the book as stipulated by health regulations and recommended by the health ombudsman.

More than 100 mentally ill patients have died from neglect and a lack of food, among other reasons, from March to December in Gauteng since the provincial health department began transferring them from the Life Esidimeni mental health facility to NGO facilities in a bid to cut costs.

NGOs picked up more than 1 000 patients from Life Esidimeni with their own means, and transported them to care homes without patient files, without knowing their diagnoses and lacking some of the aids necessary for quality healthcare.

In a report after the investigation, health ombudsman Malegapuru Makgoba said the NGOs did not have valid licences and that the transfers were handled in a dubious and unlawful manner.

The MEC for health at the time, Qedani Mahlangu, resigned before the damning health ombudsman report was released, and the head of the Gauteng health department, Barney Selebano, was put on suspension.

Newly appointed health MEC Gwen Ramakgopa said charges against Selebano were being drawn up and the investigation was near completion.

“The head of department was suspended according to the Labour Relations Act,” Ramokgopa said.

The department was continuing to negotiate with many private healthcare groups in a bid to transfer around 700 patients from other NGOs, he said. – ANA