Home ‘took care of Esidimeni patients’

OWNERS of the Masego Home for the Elderly in Krugersdorp‚ where seven Life Esidimeni patients died‚ still insist that they took care of the people who were at the facility.

They also insist that the report of the health ombudsman into the tragedy is not a true reflection of what happened.

DA MPLs Jack Bloom and Neil Campbell visited the home yesterday to inspect conditions, arriving as the Mental Health Review Board was also visiting the home.

There were also officials from the provincial health directorate‚ who attended a meeting at which the home’s management explained what had happened there.

Masego Home is a facility made up of eight houses that are leased to the home.

It is a psycho-geriatric facility only accommodating people over 55.

There are 90 patients at the home but the facility is licensed to have 141 – a decrease from 200.

The licence reduced the capacity level after the Life Esidimeni crisis.

The home receives about R4 000 a patient in state subsidies.

Masego Home received 63 patients from Life Esidimeni during the project in which the Gauteng department moved patients to various facilities, citing costs.

At Masego Home‚ seven patients died just months after they arrived at the facility.

The directors‚ Dr Dorothy Sekhukhune and Mmaletsatsi Mokgojoa‚ said the report on the home was inaccurate as it did not consider other factors about the 63 patients.

They said three of the seven patients quoted in the health ombudsman’s report died in hospital, not at Masego Home.

Sekhukhune said although she had requested the patients’ drug records, they had not been provided. – TimesLIVE