This comes after Teffo handed down judgment in the Inquiry into the deaths of over 100 mental health patients in 2016.
The inquest was established in 2021 to investigate who should be held responsible.
Teffo found that former Gauteng Health Member of the Executive Counsel, Qedhani Mahlangu and former Gauteng Mental Health Head Dr Makgabo Manamela, were negligent in the deaths of the patients.
Section 27 Chief Executive Officer Sasha Stevenson says they welcome this judgment. “Teffo noted that Mahlangu negligently terminated the Life Esidimeni contract despite expert advice and warnings, resulting in mental healthcare users being moved to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) that were ill-equipped and insufficiently experienced to care for them.
“This conduct, Judge Teffo stated, led to deaths that could have been avoided. Teffo further stated that Manamela hastily facilitated the implementation of the project plan despite expert advice and that the community-based NGOs were neither adequately qualified nor properly licensed.”
‘Judgment a lesson’
Gauteng Provincial Government Spokesperson, Vuyo Mhaga, says they accept the judgment. Mhaga says although they have not read the judgment on the Esidimeni inquest, the Premier of Gauteng Panyaza Lesufi has also accepted it.
He notes that the judgment is a lesson to those who hold positions of power to abide by the law. “I think what we have not favoured with is a full judgment. But I think we’ll just have all of us as South Africans in particular Gauteng residents to follow suit with what the judgment has actually said that’s why the Premier is accepting the judgment in its full complexity even if it basically comes.
“And I think really for us what comes out of this is to make sure that we continue to do our level best but also to deal with the evidence-based type of decision making because there are experts that are there that must obviously come and advice and I think that must actually be adhered to and I think that’s really for me the biggest message from here.”
--SABC--
