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Psychiatric patients at the Helen Joseph Hospital have assaulted 32 staff members and caused extensive property damage in the past year.

These shocking figures are revealed in a written reply by Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

Incidents have shot up because of a massive increase in psychiatric patients after the fire at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital closed their psychiatric unit.

Staff live in fear because of the violence by psychiatric patients. Reported incidents include the following:

• two nurses and a psychiatrist have been bitten
• a nurse was hit by a patient who broke her glasses
• a guard was stabbed with a knife and ended up in casualty with a collapsed lung. His assailant escaped from the psychiatric ward but was apprehended by police at the hospital entrance.
• a psychiatric patient picked up a wheelchair and tried to throw it at staff, and then broke off a bar from his bed and wielded it as a weapon

Other staff have described slaps and scratches, and being molested.

The property damage includes many broken windows, doors damaged, tampering with electrical cables, and breaking of basins, taps and toilets. A bed and mattress were also burnt.

There are only 45 beds for psychiatric patients but the hospital sees about 90 psychiatric patients every day.

Another problem is a shortage of toilets for the patients.

Desperate staff phone other psychiatric units every day for possible beds but mostly none are available. According to Mokgethi, they have also “attempted to discharge patients who, despite not yet being psychiatrically well, are deemed a low risk to self/others and have opened a discharge clinic on a Monday to review these patients in the outpatient department.”

Extra staff and security is urgently needed at this hospital, but the real problem is the continuing closure of the psychiatric wards at CMJH and the general shortage of beds in the province for mental health patients.

It is deplorable that even after the Life Esidimeni tragedy psychiatric patients are still treated poorly at unsuitable facilities without proper security where they are a danger to themselves and others.

The Democratic Alliance will continue to campaign for decent facilities with adequate staffing to ensure that mental health patients are properly cared for in a safe manner.

Issued by DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, Jack Bloom MPL