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'He was so hungry that he almost ate a serviette' - Esidimeni victim

The sister of one of the victims of the Life Esidimeni tragedy yesterday testified that she found her brother so hungry that he almost ate a serviette after finishing a meal.

Susan de Villiers, whose brother Jaco Stols died after spending 18 years at the Cullinan Care and Rehabilitation Centre, said he was severely dehydrated that he developed diabetes and also reported being assaulted while institutionalised.

During the visit, Jaco almost ate a serviette after finishing the meal she had brought him, De Villiers testified, adding that he also drank two litres of cooldrink.

Another mentally ill child living at the centre ran towards her and stuffed himself with the food.

‘Why couldn’t we have learned from the 2007 incident?’ - Life Esidimeni doctor 

De Villiers said she was informed in March last year that her brother was being moved to NGO Siyabadinga to make way for mentally ill patients being moved from Life Esidimeni facilities as part of the Gauteng mental health marathon project.

According to De Villiers, she was not told why Jaco, who was 51 when he died in October, was being moved but only that she was going to be at Siyabadinga, which was in the same premises.

"I feared that Jaco would get sick. He had a brain injury at birth and had the mind of a nine-year-old even though he was 51," she told the arbitration hearing chaired by retired deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke.

De Villiers said she had an uneasy feeling that staff at Siyabadinga were hiding something from her. After realising that Siyabadinga was struggling with food, concerned relatives and Good Samaritans held a fundraiser which De Villiers said managed to collect food, clothes and a washing machine.

"He had lost a lot of weight, but what also worried me was that there was no doctor to take care of these patients," she said of the 73 patients at the centre.

De Villiers said she once arrived at the Cullinan centre in winter and found patients walking outside naked.

A month before Jaco died, De Villiers took him to a private doctor where he confessed to being assaulted and pleaded with his sister not to take him back to the centre.

Jaco died at Mamelodi Hospital after doctors told his sister he would have to be admitted but there was no room at the intensive care unit and that available beds were for patients whose lives could be saved. The hearing continues.