- NGOs in the Life Esidimeni inquest say they will argue that the Gauteng health department failed in its duties.
- The NGOs say that, if the department had fulfilled its mandate, patients might not have died.
- The inquest aims to determine whether anyone can be held criminally liable for the deaths of the mental health patients.
Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), who received patients during the Life Esidimeni project, have told the court they will argue that the Gauteng health department failed in its duties.
Advocate Tlou Phihlela, representing several NGOs, told the Life Esidimeni inquest the department made promises to the facilities, but failed to fulfil them.
The inquest aims to determine whether anyone can be held liable for the deaths of 140 mental health patients.
Phihlela was on Thursday cross-examining the former Gauteng health head of department, Dr Tiego "Barney" Selebano.
Phihlela said: "We are going to argue that the department failed the NGOs. We are going to base this argument on the fact that NGOs were made promises and undertakings by the department to be offered support and assistance, which was never done.
"NGOs had to carry the financial burden of caring for mental health users, which was beyond their capacity. As a result, there were food shortages. There were shortages of medication, there were improper linkages of NGOs with clinics and hospitals, which ultimately contributed to the deaths of some of the healthcare users.
"We are also going to argue that the department had the oversight responsibility to ensure that they intervened at the first death. And that, at all material times, they had the powers to take the mental health users from the NGOs and perhaps, in so doing, more lives would have been saved."
Asked to respond, Selebano said: "I have no comment."
Earlier, Selebano told Phihlela that he was not informed about the first death.
He said:
Selebano told the inquest that, once he was aware of the deaths, he authorised the movement of patients from NGOs to provincial health facilities in the Tshwane district.
Asked why the patients were not moved to provincial health facilities from the beginning, he said: "We are talking about a certain number of patients. We are not talking about a large number. The comparisons for me don't really work.
"They [hospitals] said they would do what they could to assist. That doesn't really say you have capacity. It means you are stepping up to assist."
The inquest continues.