Special Hearings — Mental Health Workshop — UNKNOWN

CHAIRPERSON: Can I just say I think that we've stumbled across a general point there about lobbying process with Government and it's probably a - I'm trying to get the link with the TRC and this workshop and I think if we did make a recommendation it would have to be around for mental health issues, but I think it's a broad general recommendation, yes.

MS MKHIZE: Ja but maybe if I may say something.  I mean the TRC will write a report, it will go to the President's fund, a desk of some kind, the President's office.  Obviously people need to monitor how the government is going about in implementing these recommendations so the issue of lobbying is going to be very very pertinent in  this process otherwise the TRC process is a farce, because if after we are finished, everything stops then what was in for people, so lobbying strategy, especially lobbying the government with who the democratic policies is very difficult.

CHAIRPERSON: It is, can I just move on, there's two more points.  One is in terms of I think Judge Cooper was saying how we are focusing on what happened in the past and Arnold, is it Desmond, Donald, Donald raised the issue of research documents that were disappearing literally off shelves and so the recommendation was to endorse the fact that ongoing research is done into that corrupt racist psychological thinking that  he was speaking about yesterday afternoon.  I don't know whether he would like to say something more about that but do we feel that that's a recommendation? Wendy.

UNKNOWN: Can I just respond, I think it was Michael Simpson who raised the issue of the very specific and special TRC powers of search and seizure and subpoenas that we have.  I don't want to make promises on behalf of our Investigative Unit and perhaps make promises that we won't be able to fulfil, but if we can be told exactly what documents need to be subpoenaed and where they are, that would make our job a whole lot easier.  It's very difficult for us to go on fishing expeditions and wade through shelves and shelves of archives saying well is this appropriate, is this relevant, so if people know of documents which are in existence which would be useful in terms of information and can tell us where those are, then we can use our specific powers to obtain those documents.

CHAIRPERSON: It ought to be, a number of individuals have knowledge of what there ought to be and where ought to be could be coopted for that purpose because don't forget one of our problems that we're dealing with highly secretive organisations so that we would all of us have to be perpetrators to know exactly what documents sit in exactly which shelves but we do know what documents must exist in what places and how to look for them, and I think that is important.
 Oh could I mention one other example while I remember I've been meaning to?  One example of that is as I have mentioned before, there may be other examples once it has started, but I do know that a Dr Anton Potgieter who was for a time the head of the psychiatric services at  1 Mil Hospital had the extraordinary in my academic experience internationally a privilege of writing a thesis that had something to do with the effects of Trauma, presumably something to do with soldiers that was kept top secret, that was sealed; I don't know who the hell their examiners were but that we were told that he has testified in court that this was secret and not available to anybody.  There may well be other such examples and of course in this day and age those studies having been done with public funding and given public recognition at public expense should be revealed.

MS MKHIZE: But maybe when this specific appeal was that if people really are aware of anything that which they think which they think we should investigate they can just send a fax because we are not in a position to set up any structures at this point in time, we can only go by what we have and refer it to the investigative unit and I'm sure even for them it will be easy to consider it, if it's located and

PROF SEEDAT: I'm not specifically referring to Wendy's point but the issue of monitoring the activities of, and in this instance I'll speak about psychologists because our constitution specifically refers to actively striving for social justice supposing policies, they deny individuals or groups access to the material and psychological conditions necessary for optimal human development and ...(indistinct) against any violations of basic human rights and this is written into the constitution as a way of monitoring activities of psychologists who fail to meet these conditions. So within our sort of particular sort of organisation there is a mechanism for monitoring the activities of individuals and perhaps it may be necessary to have this monitoring function included in other constitutions as well.

MS MKHIZE: Did we have that clause in the past during apartheid days?

PROF SEEDAT: No no.
DR BAQWA(?): Thank you.  I would like to ask a question whether the TRC if they read in the newspaper something said about patient abusing hospitals, do you follow it?  Like in the newspapers, recently in the Guardian and Mail some patient died in seclusion and then currently in Ratong there is a mail nurse who raped a patient and the mail nurse is still working and they claim that they cannot trace the patient to make more accusations?  There are a lot of cuttings we have on these violations, that's why I'm interested, we have cuttings.

UNKNOWN: If I can answer that.  Our mandate ends on the 10th of May 1994, so what is happening today does not fall within our mandate.  I'm not saying that it's not important but those issues are monitored and investigated but that they would fall under the ambit either of the Public Protector or the Human Rights Commission and perhaps if we do create this health and human rights watchdog body that would be exactly the kind of function that it would serve, but the TRC has no mandate whatsoever to address abuses which are happening today.
...(indistinct comment by unknown person)
Well if you have information which falls within the period of our mandate, yes certainly but anything after the 10th of May '94 must go to the Human Rights Commission.

PROF SEEDAT: May I suggest that some of the colleagues here, there's nothing stopping us joining together and taking those things up.  One I would think we need to challenge is the Medical and Dental Council. These things are published on a daily basis.  This morning's news, Hillside Hospital, a young boy is sodomized; a few weeks ago this happened and they did some security and last night another boy sodomized, penises cut off, all that stuff.  Now, I'm serious, the Hillside Hospital, so you've got the Laratong stuff, we've got other examples.  What we should do is liaise amongst ourselves and it's just having a point of faxing to the Medical and Dental Council saying this is there, what are you doing about it?   cc that, the Public Protector because it's a statutory body, you see and then to the Human Rights Commission  as well, those three and I think we should actually do that because there's too much of a blase attitude going on about these things.

CHAIRPERSON: Can I just enquire of Group 1, did you cover conditions of care?

MS MKHIZE: Maybe why don't you go through the points?  If people feel we have discussed it under 1 and 2 then we can say that.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay I was just raising it in relation to what was said.  The last point was examining this issue about government and academic institutions supporting mental health initiatives and how government can be encouraged to shore up initiatives from CBO's and NGO's and organisations that are working on the ground in a mental health capacity.