South Africa opens inquest into deaths of psychiatric patients

JOHANNESBURG: A South African High Court opened an inquest on Monday into the deaths of 144 psychiatric patients who perished from neglect after being relocated from hospitals to unlicensed facilities.

The deaths occurred between April 2016 and January 2017, many from pneumonia, dehydration and diarrhoea, after patients were transferred from private hospitals to 27 facilities under a cost-cutting drive.

Judge Mmonoa Teffo will hear evidence expected to result in the prosecution of health department executives in Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg and Pretoria.

The National Prosecution Authority’s lawyer Pieter Luyt said at the start of the inquest, being held virtually by a High Court in Pretoria, that the “greater number of the deceased died in NGOs that were not properly vetted, or vetted at all.”

The “hastiness” of their transfer meant that many patients were placed in “facilities not equipped to care for them,” he said. “The evidence will show... their deaths were caused by sheer neglect, torture and abuse,” said Adila Hassim, an attorney appearing for some of the relatives of the deceased.

She said the families will seek to prove that the conduct of government officials and NGO owners “legally caused the deaths” of the patients.

“They chose to leave those (patients) in those homes where they would have insufficient food and water, no warmth, inadequate supervision and no access to medication.

“They were ‘death traps’,” she said echoing an earlier description by a retired Constitutional Court judge, Dikgang Moseneke.

Moseneke, who led the initial inquiry in 2018, ordered the government to pay one million rand (US$70,000) to each of the families of patients for trauma and damages.

More than 1,700 patients were moved out of Johannesburg’s Life Healthcare Esidimeni hospital.

Moseneke said the decision led to a “carnage” among patients and a “total disrespect of dignity.”