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HomeMedico-LegalEsidimeni families threaten action over non-payment

Esidimeni families threaten action over non-payment

The Gauteng government is gearing for another legal battle over the Life Esidimeni scandal that left 144 psychiatric patients dead – this time over its alleged failure to fully compensate the families of patients. A Business Day report says former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke laid the blame for the crisis firmly at the government’s door and ordered it to pay compensation of R1.2m to the families of patients who had died and those who had survived, within three months.

He did not close the door on families who had not participated in the arbitration process making claims for such compensation after it had concluded. Now, two years later, 101 families of patients who survived the Life Esidimeni scandal are claiming that the Gauteng government has failed to pay them the full amount due to them and have threatened legal action if it refuses or fails to do so.

In a letter sent to senior legal advisers in Gauteng Premier David Makhura’s office last week, attorney Ulrich Roux revealed that the majority of these families – 91 in total – had received more than half of the amount due to them while nine had not received any compensation. One family had received R590,000.

A spokesperson for the Gauteng government denied that the state was acting unlawfully in withholding the remainder of the compensation from the families of Life Esidimeni survivors. Instead, he said, it was acting on legal advice that half of this compensation needed to be held in trust for survivors and managed by a curator, rather than simply being paid into accounts belonging to their family members. Roux has disputed the claim. “The position taken by the Gauteng government does not reflect what the arbitrator (Moseneke) determined,” he said.

 

[link url="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/health/2020-08-04-gauteng-government-faces-legal-challenge-over-life-esidimeni-payouts/"]Full Business Day report (subscription needed)[/link]

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