Human Rights Commission failed to act on Esidimeni patient transfers
7 February 2017
Lives could have been saved if the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) had acted seriously on a complaint laid in March last year concerning the transfer of mental health patients from Life Healthcare Esidimeni to unlicensed NGOs.
Annie Robb of the Ubuntu Centre, an organization of people with psychosocial disabilities, wrote to SAHRC Commissioner Bokankatla Malatji on 15 March 2016 requesting "immediate urgent attention" concerning the potential violation of the rights of those affected by the Gauteng Health Department's cancellation of the Esidimeni contract.
Ms Robb says that the SAHRC did nothing and that Malatji, who chairs the SAHRC's Section 11 Disability Committee, barely remembered the issue at a July meeting of this committee.
It was only on 24 August that she was phoned by a SAHRC legal officer to say they would assign a number to her complaint, and she told him "people are going to die if you do nothing".