Keeping track of state’s spending on mental health is impossible, department says
It was impossible to say how much the state spent on care for mentally ill patients each year because there was no set budget for this in the provinces‚ the Department of Health disclosed on Tuesday."Provinces do not have a mental-healthcare budget in one place so that they can determine what is being spent on what‚" said Jeanette Hunter‚ deputy director-general of primary healthcare at the Department of Health.She was speaking to the South African Human Rights Commission‚ which is probing the status of mental healthcare following the deaths of 143 mental-health patients who died after being moved from the Life Esidimeni facility to unlicensed nongovernmental organisations.Hunter said there were some "definite areas of weakness" in the administration of care for the mentally ill.She said it was important for the provinces to determine exactly what they were currently spending on mental-health services on all levels‚ to determine whether there was a funding gap affecting how all serv...
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