Readers’ views RESPONSE TO REBECCA DAVIS’ ILLEGAL REHAB STORY
Cadre deployment, again. Why are they given bail? Witnesses might be pressured or killed, money moved or hidden. SAPS has become a criminal enterprise. Clearly the system of employment and promotion is deeply flawed if such unethical people can rise like scum to the top.
Virginia Crawford
We are a Mafia gangster state, and even the police have joined.
Jcdville
I really hope this is the beginning of cleaning up the SAPS. It is long overdue.
Roelf Pretorius
Dear Heather,
I am a recovering alcoholic (almost four years sober). The article in question piqued my interest, naturally. I have experienced both good and bad rehabs, and if the one in question is as bad as has reported it to be, then it must be hell. In my experience, very little is done for addicts with regard to the “dual diagnosis” aspect.
If those people are there without being properly medicated and properly ministered to, then I feel very, very sad for them. I visited the Facebook page of this rehab. A photo is posted of Sarah playing on a beach, with the owner asking why she didn’t run away then. There are also a few positive testimonials and a video of a few guys who look happy enough.
Can DM 168 explain this?
Dear Bruce,
We totally stand by the veracity of Rebecca Davis’s story. Please read her response to your letter, and her update to the story, below.
Response from Rebecca Davis:
1.
I and my photographer colleague Leila visited the facility ourselves, as was made clear in the article and by the photographs, so we can personally testify to how bad the conditions are. Having eight women living in a 2mx2m shack, stinking of faeces and urine, while the rehab director and her extended family live in a sprawling farmhouse a few metres away – in which the patients do all menial labour for them – speaks for itself.
2.
One of the details not mentioned in the story: when we arrived at 1pm on a Thursday afternoon, the rehab director smelled of alcohol. I cannot imagine a world in which this is appropriate for the director of a rehabilitation facility, but it also matches what our source “Sarah” told us: the director and her husband were drunk on site daily.
3.
Bruce Maclean
The editor
Since our story was published, both Sarah and the male relative who brought the story to DM168’s attention have received ongoing threats from the rehab (to the point, in fact, that the male relative, who has a small child of his own, actually hired private security for his house). This, again, is clearly not normal conduct for a legitimate facility.
4.
Facebook posts from the rehab purporting to show a loving and enjoyable environment for the patients began only when Sarah’s relative began asking questions and when DM168’s story was published. There are two pictures they have posted to support their claims: one showing patients eating lunch and another of female patients on a trip to
Hout Bay Beach. The beach trip, which had never occurred before, happened in the week that Sarah’s relative was fighting to free her and seems to have been intended mainly to get the women off site in case police or social workers came calling. Sarah told us about the beach trip, and how they were made to pose for photos. This was in no way standard procedure for the rehab – and for the rehab to post the picture on Facebook saying, “Why didn’t she run away here?” is frankly bizarre. (Sarah was scared out of her mind.)
5.
The Western Cape Department of Social Development released a statement in response to our story. In it, the department says it is approaching the courts to try to force the closure of illegal rehabs. Separately, the department has confirmed to that it has launched a full investigation into Eleanore’s Recovery Home.