The Elizabeth Donkin Psychiatric Hospital is situated next to the Chief Dawid Stuurman International Airport, in Gqeberha. Photo: Facebook
With just a fortnight remaining before Gradwell Jordaan was to be discharged from the Elizabeth Donkin Psychiatric Hospital, the 36-year-old Arcadia man was brutally attacked and killed, allegedly by a fellow patient.
The attack occurred on Friday, 26 January, while the two patients were locked down in a ward at the state mental facility in Gqeberha.
Jordaan’s distraught mother, Shereen Abesalie, told Netwerk24 that the hospital only informed her of her son’s death on Saturday morning, 27 January.
This despite the fact that he was admitted to Livingstone Hospital early on Friday evening where he passed away hours later.
“It was a massive shock… and the last thing I expected to hear,” she told the publication.
Abesalie said her son, whose mental health struggles started when he suffered a nervous breakdown following his father’s death in 2008, had been at the state facility for two months before the fatal incident.
Jordaan succumbed to the injuries he sustained when his head was repeatedly smashed into a brick wall and he was severely beaten.
Police spokesperson Captain André Beetge told The Citizen that the hospital only informed the Humewood Police Station of the incident on Monday, 29 January.
According to him, nurses in the hospital became aware of fighting in one of the wards at about 5.30pm on Friday afternoon.
“On reaching the ward, they found two male patients engaged in an assault. After unlocking the door and separating them, they discovered that one of them was bleeding profusely.
“They took him to the resident doctor, who referred him to Livingstone Hospital because of the extent of his injuries. He died at the hospital a few hours later.”
Beetge confirmed that a murder investigation is currently underway, adding that the 21-year-old accused – Erin-Jade Fillis – was arrested and appeared in the Gqeberha Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.
The court ordered that Fillis remains in the hospital section at St Albans Prison for psychological evaluation by a district surgeon.
He will appear in court again next Friday, 9 February.
Abesalie bemoaned the fact that she has not been allowed to view her son’s body at the morgue, adding that this makes her wonder “what the department is trying to hide”.
“I was told he had a huge gash on his head, stab marks on his face, and injuries to his neck, but I want to see my child for myself. It might help me to get some closure,” she was quoted as saying by News24.
Jordaan’s sisters – Desire Newfeldt and Samantha Abesalie – said the hospital told them Jordaan had allegedly slapped Fillis and then went to sit in a corner to read a book.
According to them, Fillis then went to the toilet. On his return, he approached Jordaan and started attacking their brother.
Jordaan’s family said that this was not the first time that he was admitted to the facility, adding that normally “about 29 patients are crammed into a single ward” of the dilapidated state hospital.
Eastern Cape Department of Health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said that an internal investigation has been launched into the matter.
“Family redress is being planned. Improvement plans will be informed by the outcome of the internal investigation.”
In 2012, Weekend Post reported on the issue of overcrowded wards – with some patients sleeping on the hospital floors – as well as alleged neglect of the mental patients.
The Elizabeth Donkin was dubbed the “hospital of horrors” by the publication following an investigation into two suicides at the facility in the short span of two months.
At the time, volunteers, as well as then-current and former patients who spoke to Weekend Post on condition of anonymity, also claimed that:
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The father of one of the suicide victims told the publication that his son, Adam van Nies, was being treated in E Ward where 60 patients were reportedly kept at the time. This despite the fact that the ward only has room for 32 patients.
Adam hanged himself with a sheet in a hospital bathroom in April 2012.
Humewood police spokesperson Captain Stan Jarvis told Weekend Post “serious issues” were being investigated by hospital management, the results of which would be presented to the provincial health department.
Kupelo, who was also the department’s spokesperson at the time, denied the claims of overcrowding at the Donkin.
The mental health service programme of the provincial department was placed under administration in 2018 after a damning Health Ombudsman report.
ALSO READ: EC Health Department accused of paying R67 million in salaries despite hospital closure
In 2016, the unspeakable horror of death by starvation, neglect, and dehydration of the Life Esidimeni tragedy shocked the nation and made international headlines for its litany of human rights violations.
A Health Ombudsman report released in 2017 revealed the shocking details of the mental healthcare scandal which claimed 144 lives.
It was found that over a period of eight months between 2015 and 2016, an estimated 1 700 mentally ill and vulnerable patients were moved from the Life Esidimeni cluster of privately run mental healthcare facilities in the Gauteng province to unlicensed care homes.
Many of these, it has since turned out, were merely suburban residences which were hastily repurposed.
NOW READ: SA’s mental healthcare shame: Life Esidimeni inquest wraps up
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