South Africa is not at war, yet our rates of violence are similar to war zones. Virtually every child surveyed in Soweto has witnessed extreme violence, which means they have more in common with Palestinian children than our African neighbours – and our mental health is suffering.
Could the lack of adequate counselling and mental health services in South Africa’s health facilities leave sexual violence survivors more vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicide? A new national study gives us the answers.
In 2017, a survey by the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) revealed that just one in six employees with mental illness said they felt comfortable disclosing their condition to their manager.
MPUMALANGA – “I remember the last time my mother disappeared. People from a nearby community found her walking alone in the middle of the night naked. She couldn’t remember her own name and because she was naked people thought she was a witch. They wanted to burn her alive.”
Community-based mental health organisations are cash-strapped, and face ongoing threats from government that their subsidies will be cut. But the Esidimeni tragedy shows that more money should be invested in these facilities to protect patients from being discharged into hostile communities before they are ready.
Patients at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH) psychiatric ward cannot bath or shower because the water leaks into other wards.
Former Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu denies culpability for the deaths of almost 100 mentally ill patients in Gauteng, but some believe she should be held criminally liable.
The deaths of 94 mentally ill patients transferred from Esidimeni centre is the biggest recorded mental health scandal in the history of South Africa.
The Limpopo Department of Social Development is set to intervene and help a 25-year-old mentally and physically disabled man who has been denied his education and health care.
Accepting a positive HIV status can be difficult: One Free State woman shares her journey.
The Gauteng Health Department ignored dire warnings not to “de-institutionalise” over 1000 psychiatric patients from secure care facilities run by Life Esidimeni. Now 37 patients have died in a few months – and families want answers.
In mid-September it emerged that 36 former Life Esidimeni psychiatric patients have died. These deaths come after the private health care provider's contract was terminated, resulting in patients being moved to community NGOs in and around Gauteng. In early October another death was confirmed, bringing the death toll to 37.
The brother of a deceased mentally-ill patient says he was healthy before being moved from a Life Esidimeni facility.
When the Gauteng Department of Health terminated its contract with private health service provider, Life Esidimeni, hundreds of mentally ill patients were placed in the care of people ill-equipped to look after them.
I don’t trust my psychiatrist. She is a lovely woman, expedient and efficient at her job, and she is the only one of the many specialists that I have consulted who has successfully prescribed medication that does its job.
