SIPHO PITYANA: 94 mental patients who died were victims of 'profound system failure'
'How do you explain to them why their government has failed to care for the most vulnerable in our society?'
This is an extract from an address by Sipho Pityana to the Cape Town Press Club, 2 February 2017 I must say that making speeches, at this time in our history, sometimes feels like something of a hollow act. There is nothing one could say to describe the horror and sheer neglect visited upon the most vulnerable in our society. What has been inflicted upon these defenceless people undermines our collective humanity. At a time when the psychiatric patients can no longer rely on their own government, the people’s government, to care for them properly, words fail me. How do you explain or analyse such a profound system failure to the families of the deceased? How do you explain to them why their government has failed to care for the most vulnerable in our society – and, when found out, obfuscates and plays politics?
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