Johannesburg - Former managing director at Life Esidimeni Morgan Mkhatshwa has concluded his testimony and maintains that the group is not to be blamed for the deaths of mental healthcare users.
The Gauteng Department of Health had terminated its contract with Life Esidimeni in 2016 in an attempt to save costs and restructure mental health services.
The High Court in Pretoria is investigating who should be held criminally liable for the deaths of 144 patients after they were moved from Life Esidimeni Group health facilities in 2016
Patients who were transferred later died. Their deaths were attributed to negligence, lack of food, dehydration and ill-equipped facilities.
Mkhatshwa took the witness stand on Thursday for a fourth day.
A clinician witness stated that patients who were transferred from Esidimeni Waverley facility left in a satisfactory condition.
According to her, the first batch of patients discharged went with community referral forms together with medication and prescription.
Mkhatshwa said that corresponded with what he had testified.
The clinician continued saying they made a request that at least the latest periodic report of the patients be made available, Mkhatshwa agreed with that testimony.
Mkhatshwa’s legal representative advocate Harry van Bergen read out: “All patients were discharged with medication and we never received reports about medication being expired as we were verifying that in the presence of district co-ordinators in Tshwane.”.
Van Bergen then asked Mkhatshwa if that confirmed that users (patients) left with necessary medication.
“Yes I am comfortable that our mental health patients left our facilities with the necessary medication,” said Mkhatshwa.
Van Bergen continued reading from the clinician affidavit: “before patients were discharged we were informed that the NGOs were licenced and ready, we were not responsible for the licensing”, Mkhatshwa said he cannot comment on that.
Mkhatshwa added that he was not happy about how the process to transfer the patients was conducted.
“We also did not have full information on the process as such, and also it would have helped us and the Department of Health in managing the process much more effectively.
“It also indicates that the fact why Life Esidimeni was totally against the time period that was offered and needed a more extended time to make the process as practical as possible and make sure we all had necessary data and information about the NGOs that we were going to discharge these mental healthcare users to,” said Mkhatshwa.
The court also heard from a witness by the name of Ms Mabena that the first batch of patients they received were not in a good condition and they had to be screened from scratch, it appeared that they were not well cared for after the patients were selected from Weskoppies facility.
Lawyers representing some of the NGOs in the Life Esidimeni scandal argued there was a staggering number of patients who arrived at their facilities without proper handover documents.
The discharge summaries in question were meant to reflect information pertaining to their medical history.
But former managing director at Life Esidimeni Morgan Mkhatshwa denied claims about the documents and insisted the discharge summaries were given to the patients.
Van Bergen read that there was reference by a number of the cross-examiners who alleged failures from a part of Life Esidimeni to have provided patients with “what was referred to as records and also a failure to have provided medication which you disputed, do you recall that?”
Mkhatshwa: “Yes I do.”
Van Bergen: “Would it be correct that Life Esidimeni operations were governed inter alia by the Mental Health Care Act number 17 of 2002?”
Mkhatshwa: “That is true, yes.”
Van Bergen: “Are you aware of any provision in the Mental Health Care Act that a patient’s entire file must be provided to the receiving facility or a receiving person on discharge or transfer of the patient?”
Mkhatshwa: “Not to my knowledge.”
Earlier this week, Mkhatshwa said Life Esidimeni could not be held liable for what happened to the patients after they were moved to other facilities.
Political Bureau