By Rapula Moatshe 
Aug 6, 2021
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Pretoria – The plot thickens at the Kairos Centre near Cullinan after a fourth patient was found dead last Friday.
The patient allegedly committed suicide at the psychiatric facility which operates under the auspices of the Gauteng Department of Health.
This emerged yesterday when DA MPL Bronwynn Engelbrecht went to open a criminal case against the centre at Cullinan Police Station.
The startling revelation came after the Pretoria News recently reported that three patients housed at the centre allegedly died in one month.
Mentally-ill patient Shane Jordaan, 30, initially mysteriously disappeared on June 4 and his body was discovered near the old Cullinan road also known as the R513.
The circumstances surrounding Jordaan’s death are still under investigation.
Centre manager Sussan van Niekerk has consistently refused to comment, referring all queries to her lawyer, Oeloff de Meyer, who suggested that the Department of Social Development could give a report on the matter because its officials “go to the centre unannounced”.
Gauteng Social Development spokesperson Feziwe Ndwayana has said the centre operated under the Health Department, which had constantly failed to respond to media questions about the matter.
Engelbrecht insisted that the MEC for Health, Nomathemba Mokgethi, be held accountable for the alleged negligence of patients.
She said yesterday: “The criminal case that I opened is against negligence at Kairos Centre.
“The police will be looking to see if they can find any negligence. I will be holding the Gauteng Department of Health accountable because at the end of the day the department is responsible for what is happening at Kairos.”
She told the police that the patient, who died on Friday, committed suicide. “Part of the problem that I have in terms of negligence is that the lady was a suicidal person and apparently she had been suicidal her whole life. Should you not have somebody looking after that person? Checking where she is?
She disappeared during lunch and she went into one of the workers’ rooms,” she said.
She said she wanted the police to investigate why the patient was in the workers’ room and why nobody looked for her after she disappeared.
Engelbrecht has previously said the deaths of patients brought up “memories of the Life Esidimeni tragedy, where 144 patients died due to the provincial Department of Health’s negligence”.
According to her, the information from the Kairos Centre management that Jordaan climbed over a 2-metre wire fence to escape from the centre was “a clear indication that a lack of security and proper observation of all patients provided the opportunity for Shane Jordaan to disappear”.
Pretoria News