It was never about the patients - Life Esidimeni hearing told
A family member of one of the 141 psychiatric patients who died after being moved from Life Esidimeni has described the process as a slaughtering of lives.
Christine Nxumalo's sister Virginia died in September 2016, after being moved to the Precious Angels NGO.
Precious Angels housed most of the patients who died.
Nxumalo's testimony comes as the arbitration hearing enters its third week.
"Judge, from what I have learnt through this process is that this has been going on for a while. I think one of the NGO owners referred to the patients as their commodities. Moving the patients from these facilities to NGO's is a business. It was not the fact that they were looking after these loved ones. It was never about the patients, it was about how many they can take and for how much," she said.
Arbitration Chairperson, Dikgang Moseneke, asked Nxumalo what the government was getting out of this.
"They were saving costs because they were trying to cut down the numbers at Life Esidimeni. Because I think they paid per patient. So if they could cut down the numbers at Life they could save," she said.
Nxumalo told the hearing, the owner of Precious Angel, CEO Ethel Ncube, lied during her testimony last week.
"Ethel had been friends with some government officials. She seems to have relations with some government officials. In fact we found out later on that the house in Denville or Atteridgeville is owned by a government official that is why they were able to give her patients. So she has been able to do this for a while," said Nxumalo.
She told Moseneke she believes Ncube is involved in government corruption.
The arbritation process is scheduled till the end of the month.