Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has noted and welcomed the Health Ombudsman’s recommendation to appoint an administrator to take over mental health care in the Eastern Cape, to avoid any re-occurrence of the Life Esidimeni scandal.
This as the Health Ombudsman Malegapuru Makgoba on Thursday, released a report into the Tower Psychiatric Hospital, which revealed that the number of patient deaths could not be compared to Life Esidimeni.
Motsoaledi has acknowledged challenges in the mental care system.
“The Ombuds made it very clear that there’s absolutely no similarity between Life Esidimeni and what happened at Tower Hospital that was very clear in the report and I just want to emphasised that there are no similarities. But there are weaknesses in the mental health care system which we recognised long ago and we have recognised the problem globally that mental health seems to have taken a back seat, that is also the situation in our country and we have to work hard to change it”.
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