Bereaved families of victims of the infamous Life Esidimeni fiasco, together with lobby group Section 27, have urged the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to speedily prosecute former MEC for Health in Gauteng Qedani Mahlangu and former Gauteng Director of Mental Health Directorate Dr Makgabo Manamela.
To give impetus to their demand, the families marched to the NPA offices in Church Square, Tshwane on Tuesday morning together with Section 27 officials to deliver their memorandum.
Section 27 and the bereaved families are of the opinion that there is no reason to delay the prosecution of the Mahlangu and Manamela any further as Pretoria High Court Judge Mmonoa Teffo recommended on July 10 this year that the two women be prosecuted for the Life Esidimeni fiasco.
After an inquest that started on 19 July 2021 and ended on 8 November 2023, Judge Teffo delivered a verdict whereby Qedani Mahlangu was found to have negligently terminated the Life Esidimeni contract despite advice and warnings by mental health experts not to do so, resulting in mental health care users who had been accommodated at Life Esidimeni mental health care facilities in Johannesburg being moved to the premises of NGOs that were ill-equipped and insufficiently experienced to care for them throughout the province of Gauteng.
This conduct, according to Judge Teffo led to deaths that could have been avoided.
Judge Teffo also ruled that Dr Makgabo Manamela hastily facilitated the implementation of the relocation project plan despite expert advice not to do so as the community-based NGOs where the mental patients were transferred to were neither adequately qualified nor properly licensed to take care of mental patients.
“We are here today to picket outside the NPA headquarters to call for the speedy prosecution of Qedani Mahlangu and Dr Makgabo Manamela regarding the deaths of more than 144 mental patients who were relocated from Life Esidimeni facilities,” said Section 27 Executive Director Sasha Stevenson.
“We are aware that justice is in its nature a long process, but the wheels of justice have been turning very slowly in this Esidimeni case and the NPA has more than 60 000 pages of evidence from the inquest that it can use to prosecute both Mahlangu and Manamela,” explained Stevenson.
“The NPA must urgently prioritise the prosecution of Mahlangu and Manamela as the families of the Esidimeni victims have for a long time now been waiting for individual criminal accountability,” she said.
“We are here to tell the NPA not to drag its feet as this matter has been going on for over 8 years now and at the beginning we were pushed from pillar to post when we reported this scandal to the authorities, but we are satisfied that we have a court order recommending the prosecution of those implicated in the deaths of the Esidimeni mental health patients,” said Christine Nxumalo who lost her sister in the Esidimeni fiasco.
Nxumalo also revealed that the issue of compensation for the bereaved families is still a contentious matter as there are still families which have not been compensated and are struggling financially.
One of the protesting marchers who wished to remain anonymous told Tshwane Talks that his sister Virginia Makgapela died after being relocated to an NGO that was based in Atteridgeville and as a result her daughter died broken-hearted in 2017 because of the trauma caused by her mother’s death.
The memorandum of the families of Life Esidimeni victims was read by Nxumalo who a member of the bereaved families’ executive committee is and was received by Advocate Sbongile Mzinyathi, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Gauteng who responded as follows:
“I give my commitment to prioritise this matter to ensure that a decision is expedited,” said Advocate Mzinyathi upon receiving the memorandum.
“I do not want to give you a time frame regarding the turnaround time, but I am not oblivious to the urgency of the matter and though the delay in prosecuting the matter is regrettable, we must move forward now as the only thing that is left in this matter is a decision by myself whether to prosecute or not,” he said.