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I am concerned by the report of the SA Human Rights Commission which visited George Mukhari Hospital in north west Gauteng this week and found overcrowding and poor facilities for mental health patients.

There were 37 patients in a mental health ward equipped for only 14 patients, and they were disturbed by noise and intrusive contractors working to refurbish the facility.

Patients used one bath tub in an isolation room meant for uncontrolled patients, and there was a hole in the wall where animals could enter.

There is a general problem of long delays in the refurbishment of mental health wards in Gauteng hospitals because of incompetent contractors. The mental health wards at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital were supposed to have been completed 10 years ago, and renovations at the Helen Joseph Hospital wards were recently completed nearly three years after the planned date.

I commend the SAHRC for their inspections into mental health facilities and I hope the Gauteng Health Department takes their recommendations seriously.

It is enormously distressing that mental health patients are still treated badly in Gauteng hospitals even after the Esidimeni tragedy where 144 patients died from gross neglect.

Issued by The DA