Pretoria - Former Gauteng premier David Makhura told the Life Esidimeni inquest that when he inquired about the number of patients who had died, he was told that deaths of mental health patients at their facilities were not unusual, it was normal.
Makhura was giving his testimony on Wednesday at the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria in an inquest into the deaths of 144 mental health patients.
He was answering accusations that the premier's budget committee (PBC) ordered the health department to cut some costs in the cash-strapped portfolio.
In cutting costs, patients were sent to ill-equipped facilities where most died of hunger and hypothermia.
Makhura said when he first heard that patients were dying, he arranged a meeting with former Gauteng MEC of Health Qedani Mahlangu.
He said during the meeting, Mahlangu and her team made a presentation where they compared the number of deaths which had occurred in the past and what was currently happening and said it was a normal trend.
“I was shocked that in some years we would have 30 and other years close to 40... According to them, the passing of mental health patients in the NGOs was not unusual, it was normal.”
During her evidence at the inquest, Mahlangu threw Makhura under the bus and blamed him for the transfer of mental health patients from Life Esidimeni to bogus care centres.
“The ultimate decision to transfer the mental health patients was taken by the premier,” Mahlangu said at the time.
She said that the department was trying to cut costs by ending a long-standing contract with the private psychiatric hospital, so the moving process was rushed.
During his testimony, Makhura denied that he made the fatal decision.
However, he admitted that steps were taken to bring the department’s finances under control, but he said the decision was not at the discretion of the premier’s budget committee.
“Outside implementing those cost containment measures by everybody, there was no PBC decision to deal with cutting costs from any department. The PBC would be in no position to take a decision on a contract or procurement. It would completely be unlawful,” he said.
On Tuesday, former MEC for finance, Barbara Creecy testified that the health department was not under any pressure to cut costs on funds which were allocated specifically to psychiatric or mental hospitals.
Creecy said there were times when the department was underspending.
“In 2015/16 we recognised the overspending and allocated R1.26bn to the department, the spending was R1.22bn, an underspending. The budget increased to R1.35bn, the actual spending was R1.27bn,” she said.
IOL