THE family of one of the 36 psychiatric patients who died after being transferred from the Life Healthcare Esidimeni Centre said it intended taking legal action against the Gauteng government.Virginia Machpelah suffered from Alzheimer’s and was one of the patients moved from the centre at the end of June to a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) called Cullinan Care Centre.The family said it had been left in the dark over what happened to her.Her sister, Christine Nxumalo, said she got a call from another NGO called Precious Angels telling her that Machpelah had died after six weeks in their care.She did not know how her sister had ended up at Precious Angels after the family was informed that Nxumalo was moved to Cullinan."My sister got so much better when she was there [at Life Esidimeni], we didn’t worry."She said it was "horrid" when the department decided to move the patients out of Life Healthcare."There was no interaction, it was as if they were [just] telling us what was happe...
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