Missing Life Esidemeni patients reunited with families

he department managed to trace some of the missing patients, who were unlawfully moved from Life Esidimeni to unlicensed non-governmental organisations in 2015. 

Some 144 mental patients died during the tragedy. 

Speaking to Jacaranda FM News on Sunday, Ramokgopa said some of the patients could not be tracked due to a lack of personal information and documentation.

"When we started this trace there were about 21 unaccounted patients. Last year there were 55, previously more than 100, but over the last two weeks we managed to trace five of them.

"I started in Weskoppies and met one healthy, well-looked after patient at Weskoppies, which is one of our centers of excellence and I'm here in Lenasia to reunite an uncle with his family."

Ramokgopa will also be reuniting another family in Soweto, which she said is a 'silver lining' in the whole tragedy.

 "I've asked the department to continue sparing no effort and leaving no stone unturned and working relentlessly to account for the remaining 16.”

The department is developing an electronic patient record system to better keep track of patients. 

 "We obviously need to make sure that we update it regularly, people change contacts and people change address from time to time. So the lessons for us is that even for the NGOs we have now licensed and are monitoring, and also for the Life Esidemeni facilities that we have re-contracted, we need to filter in regular confirmation of contacts."