No psychiatric ward so bipolar son in jail

Johannesburg - Letti Mofolo is a mother in pain – and she is also a mother between a rock and a hard place.

It has been nearly two months since she begged, pleaded and cried for her 32-year-old mentally ill son to be transferred from Pholosong Hospital to an appropriate mental institution after a violent outburst. Instead, he was incarcerated at Boksburg Prison.

And doctors at the hospital allegedly refused to help her because there were no beds available in a psychiatric ward.

For nearly two months, the mother, from Tsakane in Ekurhuleni, has battled bureaucracy in a desperate attempt to have her son moved out of the prison, where he has been left traumatised, without his necessary treatment and allegedly abused.

In 1996 her son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, a mental condition marked by alternating periods of elation and depression. On March 1, in a fit of rage, he broke windows at his mother's home.

She had been unable to get him to take his medication regularly because of his aggressive and dismissive behaviour towards her.

She called the police, who arrived and took him to hospital.

“I told the doctors of his condition. The only solution was for him to be transferred to Sterkfontein psychiatric hospital, because their plan to sedate him for three days and release him back to me would not work.

"The doctor said 'no'. She said: ‘You think you know too much; I'm the doctor and I have a PhD’. I begged the matron at the hospital and she told me that Sterkfontein didn't have any beds. I begged that he be taken to Tembisa Hospital’s psychiatric ward. They refused,” she said.

Mofolo, a nurse by profession, said that over the years, when her son relapsed, the hospital had always referred him to a psychiatric institution.

So it came as a surprise when she was told that she now had to open a case against him and a court had to refer him for treatment. Failing this, he would be released back into her care.

“I didn’t know what to do. I asked how long they would keep him in the cells. It was Friday and they told me that on the Monday after his first appearance in court he would be transferred,” she said.

But on the Monday of his court appearance, Mofolo was left dumbfounded when she was told by a prosecutor that he would not be transferred to the hospital, and that he would need to break something again or offend again before he was admitted.

He was released on March 14 and almost immediately went missing for two weeks.

In mid-April he was home again.

Independent Media has seen several SMSes between Mofolo and officials from the Gauteng Department of Health in her quest to get him transferred to a psychiatric hospital.

Department spokesman Steve Mabona denied allegations that Pholosong Hospital staff had not tried to intervene or help with his release from prison.

The Department of Correctional Services and the National Prosecuting Authority did not respond to several attempts to get comment.