By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, has heard that former Gauteng Health MEC,Qedani Mahlangu was determined to end the Life Isidimeni contract in order to save millions of rands.
This emerged during her cross examination regarding the decision to relocate over 3000 mental health patients from the Life Esidimeni facilities, that was taken jointly with the provincial executive committee.
According to evidence, the closure of the facilities was aimed at saving the department and the provincial government over R300 million.
About 144 patients died during the relocation period in 2016.
“And the point you’ve made in public, which I would like to repeat, is that we are not going to throw any patients away. If people have shares and personal interests at Life Esidimeni or Life Health Group, it’s not our problem. “What we are saving is R300 million that we are spending at Life.
“Yes, we can treat the patients in either facility differently with the same level of care without necessarily spending that amount of money because we no longer have the money. If we have R300 million to pay for these patients, great, let’s go ahead with the contract. But we don’t have the money.” she added
Mahlangu, department head Barney Selebano and mental health director Makgabo Manamela have all said that the tight budgets and growing auditor-general concerns about the Life Esidimeni contract forced them to cancel the department’s decades-old agreement with the private healthcare provider. The division of private hospital group Life Healthcare cared for almost 1700 state patients, many of whom were placed with deadly NGOs after the contract ended.
The Gauteng health department is no stranger to financial mismanagement. The department previously ended a three-year stint under the administration of the provincial treasury, which had taken control of the department’s finances in the 2013/14 financial year.
Watch Live the proceedings in the video below:
Video Courtesy of JRSA.