‘It won’t happen again’
Communication between the Gauteng health department and mental-health NGOs has vastly improved, and “another Esidimeni is just not possible”.
That is the view of Marius Bosman, centre manager for San Michele Home, the secondbiggest NGO housing mental health patients in the province. “We now have an open door to the director of mental health. Things are slowly getting better and progressing,” he said.
Bosman has been involved in the field since the Life Esidimeni tragedy in 2016.
“What happened back then was a lot of small guys started taking in patients even though they lacked capacity and trained staff. They thought they would be paid the same kind of patient subsidies that were being paid to Life Esidimeni, only to find out that it was very much less — only about a third. They really thought they would be fairly remunerated,” he said.
As patients relapsed and began dying, there was a scramble to save lives.
“We received 15 patients when we already had 119 of our own,” he said, explaining that these patients were eventually moved on as the department started fixing the problems and capacity improved. “Today things are much better. Sometimes we receive our subsidy payments a few days late, and there have been lots of cost cuts that are challenging to deal with. But things are smooth and we are managing.”
The cumbersome process of sourcing medications and dry stock, such as bandages, syringes and swabs, has eased, though the department no longer pays for adult nappies that cost R13 each. “Our nappy costs are R15,000 a month, and it’s something we have to buy ourselves. In 2019 they stopped supplying us with vitamins and flu meds, so we also have to buy that ourselves.”
Bosman said he has 227 patients and receives regular visits from social workers, dietitians, health & safety practitioners, and he is audited on a quarterly basis.
“There’s the odd failure here and there, but I would honestly rate them at 80%. We have an open door to the deputy director of mental health and there’s good process. Another Life Esidimeni is just not possible.”