The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) is taking on the NGOs which scored financially from the transfer of mental healthcare patients in Gauteng during the Life Esidimeni tragedy.
The Cape Argus reports that details of the investigations emerged at the Special Tribunal last Friday (18 March) and the SIU also confirmed that the unit was not only focusing on Santa Kamogelo, which is based in Atteridgeville in Tshwane. The Special Tribunal’s Judge Lebogang Modiba upheld an exception by Santa Kamogelo to the SIU’s particulars of claim against the facility and its representatives, Busi Carrina Morale and GTZ Kambane. In its papers filed at the tribunal, it is claiming about R230,000 from the NGO.
The Gauteng Department of Health entered into an agreement with Santa Kamogelo in August 2016 to provide both residential and non-residential mental healthcare services to users with severe psychiatric and/or profound intellectual disabilities. According to the SIU, the agreement restricted the number of residential mental healthcare patients that Santa Kamogelo would admit to 186, and the department would subsidise its costs at a rate of R3,413 per mental healthcare patient each month. The deal also stated that the subsidy would be reduced on a pro rata basis for any number of days in a month in which a user did not utilise Santa Kamogelo’s services.
However, Santa Kamogelo submitted a claim to the Health Department of almost R4.8m, which represented the total costs for services rendered in terms of the agreement. According to the Cape Argus report, the SIU told the Special Tribunal that Santa Kamogelo only admitted 185 mental healthcare patients in May 2016, and took care of them for 20 days. In terms of the agreement, Santa Kamogelo was only entitled to claim on a pro rata basis in the month of May 2016 and, therefore, was entitled to claim an amount of R112,299 for services rendered to 51 mental health users and another R195,467 for 133 mental health users.
The department transferred R477,037 to Santa Kamogelo’s bank account and thus overpaid Santa Kamogelo by an amount of R169,271. The SIU said that between May 2016 and March 2017, Santa Kamogelo submitted claims to the value of more than R5.1m, resulting in the department overpaying it by more than R59,000 and that the NGO had been unjustifiably enriched.
Modiba set aside the SIU’s particulars of claim and ordered the unit, within 15 days from Friday, to deliver its amended set of documents. Santa Kamogelo will have to deliver its plea and/or counter claim or further exception within 10 days of expiry of 15 days.
Cape Argus Pressreader article – SIU wants Life Esidimeni NGOs to pay back the money (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Life Esidimeni inquest: ‘He vomited for four weeks and then he starved to death’
Life Esidimeni inquiry: NGO had grown men sleeping in baby cots
Dozens of former Life Esidimeni patients remain missing
Life Esidimeni deaths: ‘Not the fault of Health MEC’