4 of Esidimeni missing traced

PATIENTS ON DATABASE AS GRANT RECIPIENTS Johannesburg Central police station helping to track down other patients.

The Gauteng provincial health department is on the verge of tracing four of the 21 missing Life Esidimeni patients after it found their names among grant beneficiaries on the South African Security Agency’s (Sassa) database, the department announced yesterday.

Acting director of mental health Dr Kobie Marais said they had managed to find the names of the four from Sassa and were currently working to secure the agency’s cooperation to provide the department with their personal details, including addresses, so that the department officials could visit them at home.

“We are using Sassa’s database to locate them. We have also engaged Johannesburg Central police station to support us in finding the rest of the mental health patients,” Marais said.

She said that at the beginning of 2017, there were more than 100 missing patients, while the number dropped to 45 in February, and then to 21.

The patients were excluded from the 144 that died after they were handed over to unqualified nongovernmental organisations by the department under former health MEC Qedani Mahlangu .

“We have to visit and physically see these patients before we take them off the list of the missing persons,” Marais said.

Marais spoke at a media briefing addressed by Gauteng health MEC Dr Gwen Ramokgopa and department head Professor Mkhululi Lukhele at Rahim Moosa Mother & Child Hospital at Westbury, Johannesburg.

The MEC and top management explained various achievements made by her department to improve primary healthcare in the province’s facilities.

Ramokgopa said there was a plan to empower hospital boards to be able to do oversight function over management.

Presently, the boards merely advise hospital management but with their new powers, they would be able to do inspections and other tasks at the facilities.

She said a mental health recovery plan was adopted and an implementation plan would be undertaken.

The MEC expressed appreciation at the dedication of front-line staff at various public health centres for taking additional workloads of patients from other provinces, foreign countries and the private sector.

She said the professionalism in healthcare provision had made the province’s facilities the first choice for primary training of health professionals.

The province had achieved the highest number of facilities that were accredited as ideal hospitals and ideal clinics, a project undertaken by the Gauteng health accreditation committee. –