Tag: Esidimeni

Mental health patients at the Baneng Care Centre run by Life Esidimeni in Roodepoort receive good care in a cost-effective private/public partnership with the Gauteng Health Department.

I observed this on a visit to the centre yesterday (17 May) with my colleague Dr Neil Campbell MPL.

The Baneng Centre looks after 275 severely mentally impaired children who were mercifully not transferred to unlicensed NGOs last year as occurred with other Esidimeni patients.

In addition, there are now 188 adult patients who were recently sent there from the NGOs as per the recommendations of the Health Ombudsman in his report which found that more than 100 patients had died after the Gauteng Health Department cancelled its contract last year with Esidimeni for about 1900 patients.

Many of the patients, including all the children, are completely dependent and require round-the-clock care.

Senior management showed us the spotlessly clean facilities which include recreational opportunities for the more high-functioning patients.

Baneng is paid R488 per day for each patient according to Esidimeni’s new contract with the Department. This amounts to about R15000 per month for each patient, which is similar to the rate paid for about 400 former Esidimeni patients who are now at the Selby Park Hospital in inner city Johannesburg.

Esidimeni and its predecessor companies have been providing care for severely impaired mental health patients for 50 years in a long-running partnership which started with the national health department and was then transferred to the provincial health department.

A study commissioned by the Gauteng Health Department in 2015 found that Esidimeni provided good value for money because of economies of scale. The rate then was R320 per patient per day, which amounted to about R10 000 per patient per month.

The increased rate now paid to Esidimeni and Selby Park is due to increased staffing requirements set by the Department.

But the costs for patients in state hospitals are much higher according to the following figures given in the Health Ombudsman’s report:

Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital – R1960 per patient per day or about R60 000 per patient per month.

Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital – R1386 per patient per day or about R43 000 per patient per month.

Cullinan Care and Rehabilitation Centre – R1486 per patient per day or about R46 000 per patient per month.

The tragedy is that a long-running successful private/public partnership with Esidimeni was terminated for alleged budgetary reasons but resulted in avoidable deaths and increased costs.

According to National Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi there are currently 789 patients at Selby Park and the two Esidimeni facilities (Baneng and Waverley) and 461 former Esidimeni patients are at Weskoppies, Sterkfontein and other state hospitals.

If we include the 275 child patients at Baneng, the total cost for 1064 patients at private health facilities is now about R190 million a year, and the yearly cost for the 461 patients at state hospitals is about R276 million.

The total cost amounts to about R466 million a year, which is more than double the R222 million a year that was previously paid to Esidimeni for 1900 patients.

More state mental patients should be moved to private facilities like Esidimeni and Selby Park that can provide quality care at a lower cost.