Daily Sun (September 20 2013) - IT CLAIMS to be a home that cares for people with mental and physical disorders . . . But residents say the place is unsafe and dirty, and that frail, helpless patients are starved and abused.
DAILY SUN INVESTIGATED - AND YESTERDAY THE HOME WAS SHUT DOWN!
The house of horror - in extension 15, Sebokeng, in the Vaal, south of Joburg - is called the Reyaphela Home for Orphans and Mentally and Physically Challenged Patients. Alerted by residents, Daily Sun was shocked to find one inmate, a 19-year-old coloured boy known only as Kobie, a virtual skeleton, naked and sprawled on a bed!
Kobie is apparently paraplegic. He can't talk, walk or even sit up properly and his hands don't function. He only understands seSotho. According to residents, Kobie also suffered attacks from other patients. Nobody could say where he comes from.
Along with Kobie, Daily Sun found two elderly male patients who are mentally ill. There are two supposed caregivers on the site, Seipati (not her real name), a 17-year old orphan who first arrived at the home in 2011, and Neo Ntshala (27).
The teenage girl helps look after patients by bathing and dressing them, and cooking and cleaning for them. But she told Daily Sun one of the men at the centre repeatedly raped her.
"I want to be a child instead of being a wife and a mother to these men," she said.
When Daily Sun first visited the home on Wednesday, we were greeted by the smell of urine from the blankets and mattresses baking in the hot sun, and that of pap and cabbage on a two-plate stove. We spoke to Kobie and asked him if he needed an ambulance to take him to the local hospital. He answered "Yes".
The home operates from an RDP house, but Daily Sun tracked down the owner, Pulane Matlasane, and found the 47-year old woman at her vegetable stall in zone 12, Sebokeng. Pulane said these were not the first complaints about her home - extension 15 residents had often complained about the conditions there to social workers at a nearby clinic.
"I'm doing the best I can, there's no funding and I run this small business so I can support my patients," she said. Pulane dismissed the rape claims. "As we speak, I'm running up and down at Home Affairs trying to get IDs for the other patients," she said.
Asked where her patients came from, Pulane said: "I'm part of a committee for orphanages and homes that work together with hospitals to take care of uncollected patients at local hospitals." After being contacted by Daily Sun, Emfuleni Local Municipality's spokesman Stanley Gaba yesterday dispatched social workers to the home.
"They will give us a report upon which further action will be taken," he said. But after visiting the home, social workers shut it down immediately and moved all the patients out in an ambulance.
Activists from Boitumelo Community Organisation and Setjhaba Kopanang Victims' Hope accompanied social workers to the home and were shocked at the living conditions of the patients. Bob Mahlangu from Setjhaba Kopanang called for an investigation. "Some people are heartless, opening orphanages and homes for their financial benefit," he said.
Rose Gwebu from the Boitumelo Community Organisation slammed the owner of the home. "This is no way for human beings to live. We are happy the home was shut down," she said.
) Police spokesman Warrant Officer Mzimkhulu Mthimkhulu said members of the Family, Child, Violence and Sexual Offences Unit will visit the home tomorrow to investigate the allegations of rape.
See the Daily Sun mobi site for more on this and other stories....
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