‘Why did he have to die such a cruel death?’
● For six desperate months, Jabulile Hlatshwayo searched for her missing son.
He had been moved out of the Waverley branch of Life Esidimeni, the place he had called home for 15 years. No-one had told her. And there was no record of where he had been transferred to.
“Nobody cared. I got sick and suffered a stroke. I lost my job. I just couldn’t function,” she told the Sunday Times.
In October 2016 she received the news that her son was dead. He had died a month previously, just days before his 29th birthday.
But this week’s inquest ruling by Pretoria high court judge Mmonoa Teffo — that former Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu and mental health director Makgabo Manamela can be held responsible for the deaths of nine Life Esidimeni patients — has given Hlatshwayo renewed hope that justice will be done.
“Now, even with this pain in my chest, I have hope at last. I want to see those people prosecuted and put in jail.”
Hlatshwayo said her son Sizwe’s brain did not develop properly from birth and he was unable to speak, and developed epilepsy. He was admitted to Life Esidimeni Waverley in 2000 where he was happy and well cared for. “Every December, he would come home to us in Brakpan for the holidays and we loved him so much. He was always happy,” she said.
The mother grew concerned at the end of 2015 when, like other patient families, she began receiving notifications that the Gauteng health department was planning to terminate its Life Esidimeni contracts, and patients would be moved to NGOs.
“I remember being at one of those early meetings. Qedani Mahlangu was there, and she told us: ‘Do you know that in Brazil they have no such thing as mental health care?’ We asked her what they did with their patients, and she told us they chain them up behind the house.
“I remember asking her: ‘Are you telling me I must just chain my son up in the back yard?’ I asked her that, but she wouldn’t answer,” Hlatshwayo said, tearing up at the memory.
She joined with other parents, aided by NGO Section27, to try to stop the discharge of mentally ill patients. But, without her knowledge, Sizwe was discharged from Life Esidimeni and taken to the Cullinan Care Centre, from where he was later moved to Anchor Home.
“I was not told when it happened and I was not informed of where he was being moved to. I searched for him for six months, just praying that I would find him alive so I could take him home.
“They told me that they did not contact me because his file was missing,” Hlatshwayo said.
On October 3 2016, a social worker from Cullinan made contact with Hlatshwayo’s brother-in-law and, after determining that he was related to Sizwe, she asked to meet the family. “She told him Sizwe had passed on September 10. He had been dead for almost a month,” she said.
Hlatshwayo went to fetch Sizwe’s remains. She asked why she had not been informed earlier, “and his file just appeared miraculously, somehow with my brother-inlaw’s details recorded there. It was absolutely ridiculous.”
She was then allowed to see her son’s body. “I just went numb. I couldn’t talk or cry. I just didn’t understand why. Why? Why did this happen? Why was he helpless? Why couldn’t he fight or protect himself? Why did he have to die such a cruel death?”
After being allowed to take the body for burial, Hlatshwayo was contacted by the health department and told the body was needed for another day as an autopsy report had to be done. “Can you believe that? They had my son for a month and just when I want to bury him, they tell me I must wait another day.”
The autopsy found Sizwe had died of pneumonia.