White House Community Care Centre shuts its doors

THE White House Community Care Centre in KwaNyuswa, a home for the elderly, disabled and those with special needs, has shut its doors amid a flood of controversy.

The centre was started by Sithembiso ‘Russel’ Chili as the Sithembakuye Children’s Home in 2004 and was renamed Whitehouse Community Care Centre in 2014.

According to a volunteer, whose name is known to the Highway Mail and asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, the organisation’s doors were officially shut on 23 February.

The source said seven ambulances were instructed by the Department of Health to remove more than 40 patients from the property. They were then transferred to various hospitals across Durban.

The source said no hand copy records were kept for the patients’ medication requirements and the tablets on hand were kept in a cardboard box or in bank bags with names stapled onto them.

“At one stage there were 71 people being cared for by a group of four staff members. There was a single tap outside for water, all the toilets were blocked and the food was only ever cooked on an open fire outside.”

According to the source, the patients were given urine tests and ketones were found.

“They were dehydrated. The day I chose to leave, the patients were only given breakfast at 10.30am and that same evening, when I left for the last time at about 6.30pm, they had not yet received dinner.”

A volunteer, who asked not to be named, said a patient was given a bed bath on a Friday and by the next Monday the patient was encrusted in faeces.

“Many of the patients were bed-ridden and relied heavily on others to help them, whether it was the carers or volunteers. There were no water carafes next to their beds and sometimes other patients would go and give them water,” said the volunteer.

One of the patients with special needs, who was admitted in 2016, said at times they wouldn’t receive more than one meal a day for up to a week.

“One day we were given breakfast at lunch time at about 12pm and were only fed again the next morning at about 9am,” said the patient.

The organisation’s founder, Sithembiso Chili, was on site during a recent visit by the Highway Mail. He claimed to have posted a notice on the Centre’s Facebook page to inform its supporters and donors of the closure in December last year. The Highway Mail has confirmed this statement is untrue. Chili said “I closed it because it was all just getting too much for me.”

During a tour of the property, the women’s ward, which was donated by a family trust in 2015, contained no hospital beds but did contain a pool table, a TV set, large speakers and bar stools. The second ward’s roof was collapsing but there were beds on the floor. Windows of the main building were broken and the organisation’s sign posts dotted around KwaNyuswa have not been taken down. Rubbish had been thrown down the embankment and set alight.

He noted the people still on the property were not patients and confirmed he was no longer receiving donations, in-kind or monetary. “We only ever had three supporters who gave us money and I told them we were closed,” he said.

The Department of Health was contacted for comment but none was received by the time of going to print.