Life Esidimeni contracts in East Cape extended

Life Esidimeni’s contract to run a 700-bed facility for patients with chronic mental health illnesses in Kirkwood has been extended for another year.

The contract was scheduled to end at the end of December but health department spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said the tender for a service provider had not been awarded by the department’s supply chain management.

“There is no successful candidate [for the tender] yet,” Sicwetsha said.

“We have applied for the [current] contract to be extended for 12 months to all for the bid processes to be finalised.

“The current arrangements will prevail.”

Sicwetsha said no movement of patients would take place after December 31.

The current contract expired on September 30 and had been extended for three months only while the department tested the market.

The department pays about R10,000 per patient a month at present.

The department published its R120m tender to outsource chronic mental healthcare in the province in September.

Apart from chronic care, service providers have also been asked to tender for community-based initiatives to achieve this.

About 700 adult and 180 paediatric mental health patients

‘We have applied for the contract to be extended . . . for the bid processes to be finalised’ Lwandile Sicwetsha

HEALTH DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON

are now being cared for in Life Esidimeni centres in Kirkwood and Bethelsdorp respectively. The contract for the paediatric patients was also extended.

The tender documents show that the department is also seeking to distribute beds for chronic mental health patients across the province if possible.

Life Esidimeni managing director Puseletso Jaure said business at the Kirkwood facility would carry on as usual.

“The service delivered at Kirkwood will continue in terms of the current contract until notified otherwise,” she said.

Earlier this year, the health ombudsman, Prof Malegapuru Makgoba, recommended to health minister Aaron Motsoaledi that an administrator be appointed to oversee mental health in the province.

Ministerial spokesperson Popo Maja previously said the minister was still consulting on the decision to do so.

He did not respond to a fresh request for comment on whether there was any progress in this regard.