Suspended head of the Gauteng Health Department Barney Selebano says if he had foreseen the tragedy after moving patients from the care of Life Esidimeni‚ he would not have ended the contract to close the psychiatric homes and move 1‚712 patients into the care of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
At the end of September 2015‚ Selebano signed the termination contract to end the partnership with JSE-listed Life Healthcare‚ the company that ran the Life Esidimeni facilities.
In total, 143 mentally ill patients died‚ mostly in over-crowded‚ under-funded and sometimes unlicensed NGOs.
Selebano told the Life Esidimeni hearing on Wednesday, "I wish I could go back to the time and act differently ... if I could have foreseen ... the future, adverse consequences ... the unintended consequences."
Selebano was testifying under subpoena as he was head of the department when the move took place.
Section 27 advocate Adila Hassim has been cross-examining him as to why he ignored warnings by psychiatrists that shutting down the homes and de-institutionalising patients who needed 24-hour care would have a "devastating" effect.
The two letters written by psychiatrists and sent in 2015 warned that NGOs or "community mental-health homes" were inadequate for these patients and hospital beds for chronically ill mental health patients were in short supply. They also warned such a decision, to move all 1‚700 patients, would "escalate" costs and that violent mental health patients could land up in the over-crowded prison system.
Selebano said on Tuesday he didn’t "recall" the first e-mail sent in April. On Wednesday, he responded about reading a warning letter in June, saying, If I could see into the future ... I would have stopped the whole thing."
Hassim replied: "The foresight was provided it to you ... [in warning letters]. You were informed of the risks ... You accept that you received warnings that if you are going down that road, there were very bad things going to happen."
Hassim wanted to know what Selebano felt when he was warned that a mass move of 1‚712 mentally ill patients would a be bad idea. Selebano said: "I don’t know what my feeling was at that time. I don’t know … it was 2015. Was I worried … was I concerned? This letter was sent to the MEC."
Hassim declared: "You didn’t do anything with these warnings."
Selebano has said on the stand that he is "accountable" but has not answered questions in detail about what happened. He also admitted, in a passing comment, that Life Esidimeni was often not paid on time by the Gauteng Health Department.
A senior government insider told TimesLIVE that a head of a provincial department would sign hundreds of documents and contracts a day and receive thousands of e-mails daily.
The person explained that with the administrative burden it would be possible to miss e-mails or not remember what one signed. The insider said senior heads of departments relied on staff underneath them to do their job and alert them about problems.
This is what Selebano has testified, saying he had hundreds of clinics‚ "more than 34 hospitals and 67‚000 employees" to oversee and relied on managers to do their jobs.
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