Gauteng’s health department ‘was reckless’, say civil society groups
A GROUP of civil society groups has described the Gauteng health department’s transfer of psychiatric patients‚ during which 36 of them died‚ as a "reckless placement".They penned an open letter to Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu in which they said it was a "violation of our constitutional dispensation which commits to protecting the most vulnerable members of our society".The letter was signed by the Treatment Action Campaign‚ the South African Depression and Anxiety Group‚ the People’s Health Movement SA‚ Section 27‚ the Public Health Association of SA and the Junior Public Health Association of SA.In the letter, the groups expressed their "condolences to the families of these 36 human beings who have died"."Secondly‚ we regard this tragedy [as] entirely preventable and unnecessary. There is plenty of evidence from other countries and from previous experiences in SA that the deinstitutionalisation of long-term psychiatric patients into the community cannot be done in an unplann...
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