Health Care Services for Mentally Ill: Mpumalanga & Northern Cape Departments of Health

The Mpumalanga and Northern Cape Provincial Departments of Health briefed the Portfolio Committee on Health on the state of health care services for mentally ill patients in their provinces. State of mental health: Mpumalanga According to the Mpumalanga Department of Health (DOH) mental health was an integral part of health and improved mental health was crucial for the realisation of government’s programme of a long and healthy life for all. Progress was being made in improving mental health such as the establishment of the Mental Health Review Board (MHRB). This board was appointed by the MEC Office in line with the Mental Health Care Act. The board reported any infringements of the human rights of mental health care users to the MEC’s office. The workload of the MHRB (one at the moment) was too much and plans are in motion to increase the number of review board in the province. The province did not have a psychiatric hospital and this had been a major challenge. As an intervention, the Department was working with the Mpumalanga Economic Growth Agency (MEGA) to fast forward the construction of a psychiatric hospital in the province that will hopefully commence before the end of the current financial year. Another challenge was the use of general hospitals to deliver psychiatric services which has resulted in adverse events such as the mushrooming of unlicensed non-profit organisations (NPOs). Mpumalanga province had a population of roughly 4.3 million in 2016. The province consisted of three districts which are Ehlanzeni, Gert Sibande and Nkangala. It bordered Swaziland and Mozambique. The province was mostly rural and that made it difficult to attract skilled professional mental health specialists. The Department contracted Life Esidimeni for the provision of chronic mental health services at Siyathuthuka that had 250 adult beds and Baneng that had 20 beds exclusively for children. In terms of human resources, there are a lot unfilled vacancies in the Department: