Mental health services in crisis: KZN organisations struggle amid funding cuts

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

- YOSHINI PERUMAL

MENTAL health organisations in KwaZulu-Natal are facing imminent collapse as funding cuts force staff to borrow from loan sharks just to get to work.

With facilities unable to respond to emergencies, patients with severe mental health conditions face an uncertain future.

The Durban and Coast Mental Health organisation (DCMH), which provides care for hundreds of abandoned patients, reports that lives are already being lost due to their inability to respond to urgent cases

The organisation said they were buckling under the strain of funding cuts and a lack of donations.

They said many staff had been forced to quit their jobs or borrow money from loan sharks to sustain themselves while waiting to be paid.

Empty shelves, a depleted food stock, dry petrol tanks, a mountain of bills and staff shortages are the ripple effects of the funding cuts faced by the DCMH, which caters to thousands of patients across KZN.

At the Phoenix branch the situation has described as "critical and dire". It offers residential care to 300 patients with mental health conditions, many of whom were abandoned by their families and are totally dependent on staff at the facility.

The organisation's manager, Busi Sibisi, said the funding cuts from the Department of Social Development (DSD) in April last year, and the tranche payment system had jointly led to financial woes at all branches in the province.

"Last week, a Phoenix resident called in the morning for help. He was suicidal. But we had no means to get to him. We told him to come to the centre, but by the afternoon, he had committed suicide.

"He did not get the proper intervention on time, and had no treatment or counselling that day, which could have saved his life.