DA wants probe into top health officials
THE DA has called for an urgent investigation into top officials who were warned about the danger of transferring mentally ill patients from Life Healthcare Esidimeni to mostly unlicensed NGOs which resulted in 94 deaths.
DA health spokesman Dr Wilmot James said yesterday while health ombudsman Malegapuru Makgoba had singled out former Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu and some Gauteng provincial officials for their role in the tragedy‚ material the DA had implicated the national Department of Health and the Premier’s Office.
He said responsibility for the tragedy radiated wider than Gauteng health.
“Today I wrote to Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi to request that he launch an urgent investigation into why it is that‚ despite the director-general Ms MP Matsoso, of the national Department of Health, being alerted – as far back as January last year – that the de-institutionalisation of mental patients from Germiston’s Waverley Care Centre would turn into a disaster‚ as it has‚ the department did not avert the deaths not only at Waverley‚ but at all the other institutions in which 94 mentally challenged South Africans died.”
James said the DA was in possession of a letter from the 2016 occupational therapy class at the University of the Witwatersrand in which they declared that they were “deeply aggrieved by news of the closure of the Waverley Care Centre and are writing with the hope that the closing of this crucial facility may be prevented”.
“As health professionals in training‚ their word that ‘these patients‚ who are already vulnerable‚ will be at risk of abuse and injury should they be discharged from Waverley’ carried a great measure of credibility‚” James said.
The letter was addressed to Mahlangu‚ Gauteng premier David Makhura‚ the national DG for health‚ MP Matsoso‚ and the former deputy DG for Health‚ Dr Terence Carter‚ he said.
“The minister must get to the bottom of how this avertable tragedy could have been avoided‚ especially considering that the officials responsible had been warned,” James said.