28 ESIDIMENI PATIENTS ARE STILL MISSING

I have been informed by the police that a number of missing Life Esidimeni patients have been found, and there are now 28 patients who have still not been located.

This follows the missing person cases that I laid with the police earlier this year.

While I am pleased that the original list of 62 has been reduced to 28 patients, there is a decreasing chance of finding them all since they were discharged two years ago from Esidimeni to illegally registered NGOs.

According to the list from the Gauteng Health Department that the police have given me, there are 18 males and 10 females who are missing, ranging in age from 27 to 79 years old (in two cases the date of birth is given as 1900 and 1914 but this seems to be a mistake).

In three cases there isn’t even a name, including the description “Male child David” who was born in 1978.

It is distressing that so many patients have still not been found, which highlights the fact that the Esidimeni tragedy is still not over.

At some stage they will have to be presumed dead as they cannot survive long without proper care.

Meanwhile, better progress is needed in laying criminal charges against all those responsible for the ill-treatment and deaths of the Esidimeni patients.

Statement issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 27 May 2018