The department’s spokesperson, Lulu Mxekezo, assures OFM News the department has made the necessary appointments to ensure there is sufficient personnel available to handle the demands of running the facility adequately. Mxekezo has not provided the total number of clinical and support staff appointed, but it has been announced the department has appointed 70 security personnel permanently. The hospital’s opening has been delayed for more than ten years, with delays due to construction and escalating costs grabbing national headlines in recent years.

Once structurally complete, the hospital’s doors remained closed due to the lack of money for operational expenses. Mxekezo says the National Department of Health has set aside a conditional grant to help the provincial department meet these operational costs. The provincial department has also transferred the majority of the patients from the psychiatric wing of the West End Hospital in Kimberley to the new facility.

The spokesperson confirms that 39 state patients – defined as individuals who have been charged with offences involving serious violence and who have been declared unfit to stand trial and/or who are not criminally responsible because of their mental illness or defect by the South African Journal of Psychiatry – remain at West End and will be moved to the new facility in due course.

The national probe into the alleged mismanagement of funds relating to the construction of the hospital is reportedly being finalised. Forensic auditors have submitted a report to the Public Prosecutor to ascertain whether individuals can be held liable for the misappropriation of funds. There were media reports that alleged the ageing Free State Psychiatric Complex in Bloemfontein would be decommissioned once the Northern Cape Psychiatric Hospital is opened. Free State Health MEC, Montsheng Tsiu, refuted those reports telling OFM News the ailing Bloemfontein-based hospital located less than 170km outside Kimberley would be “going nowhere”. This is despite the plethora of issues affecting the Free State hospital.

OFM News