Following the release of the Health Ombudsman’s report detailing the poor state of care at Kimberley Mental Hospital in the Northern Cape, some families have asked the health department to take responsibility for the sub-standard healthcare their family members received.

One family alleges their parent, who was a psychiatric patient, was physically assaulted by a nurse and later died.

The department has failed to investigate the matter.

Another family claims their family member’s health condition worsened after treatment at the facility and is now incapacitated.

Thirty-four-year-old Puseletso Vanto says she never found closure after her father’s death. He was allegedly assaulted by a male nurse in 2010 and later died while he was a patient at West End Mental Hospital.

Evidence in an affidavit shows that Isaac Molefe’s cause of death was blunt force trauma.

Vanto described the death of her father as traumatic.

“When they explained to me how he was when he went to the hospital, it’s very tragic. I constantly have those imaginary pictures in my mind of how they explained his condition. I would honestly love to hear from their side in such cases, what is it that they do, what is it they do to help the family heal because that is trauma. Imagine being on duty, your duty is to help people, to protect people, but you end up being the cause of those peoples’ deaths,” laments Vanto.

Another family in Windsorton is seeking answers about the state of their 73-year-old mother. Rebecca Setlhabi was admitted to the facility in April 2022. According to her family, Setlhabi was physically fit, but that changed after she was discharged that year.

Her son, Diteko Setlhabi says after his mother was discharged, her health deteriorated and that she is now paralysed. He says they sent their mother to the hospital to get better, but she came back worse, with no explanation.

“We would like to get help with this situation because our mother left the house in a normal state and now, she is not able to move at all. We don’t know what the problem is and we would like to know what was the cause. We want to know the conditions of the hospital and the medications she was given, because all of a sudden her body started shutting down. She can’t even move or bath herself. She is full of bed sores now,” says Setlhabi.

The health department has requested the families to lodge a formal complaint for the internal investigation processes to kick in.

Dr Alastair Kantani, provincial senior clinical manager for health services, says, “We only came to know of these two cases in a media inquiry. We have internal processes where a complaint can be laid and through that process we are able to do our own internal investigations and respond within a specific timeframe. At the moment, it’s very difficult to commit because I have not seen the case. We have not seen any formal complaint. So, my response for now will be no comment on saying what are we going to do about it until we have done our thorough investigations on this.”

The department says it will respond within 28 days after a formal complaint has been lodged.

Health officials say they are implementing the recommendations of the Ombud’s report, which blames the department for the death of two psychiatric patients last year.

Health Ombud | Mental patients died of hypothermia due to poor infrastructure at N Cape hospitals