Hundreds of drug users stranded after Gauteng government closes rehabs

The Randfontein and Witpoort drug rehabilitation centres run by Life Nkanyisa have closed their doors. Archive photo: Masego Mafata

• Two drug rehabilitation centres run by Life Nkanyisa, a subsidiary of Life Healthcare, have recently closed their doors after the Gauteng Department of Social Development declined to renew its contract.
• The centres had been funded by the department since 2016.
• In the first three months of its financial year, fewer than 150 people went through the department’s in-patient drug rehabilitation programme, instead of more than 1,300 as planned.
• The Gauteng Department of Social Development did not respond to GroundUp’s questions. It has failed to respond to a single one of our questions since July.

Two large drug rehabilitation centres in Randfontein and Witpoort managed by Life Nkanyisa have shut their doors after their funding was withdrawn by the Gauteng Department of Social Development.

The centres had 606 beds for in-patient rehabilitation and 144 beds for half-way house programmes, by far the largest drug rehabilitation operation funded by the department. In 2022/23, the centres received R124-million in funding, more than 25% of the department’s total budget for substance use treatment that year.

The two centres were previously Life Esidimeni psychiatric facilities funded by the Gauteng Department of Health, which were carelessly shut down by that department in 2015, leading to the deaths of at least 144 people. In March 2016, the facilities were converted into drug rehabilitation centres, funded by the department through its non-profit funding system, and were later rebranded from Life Esidimeni to Life Nkanyisa.

GroundUp previously reported that the department had pushed through the decision to fund the rehabilitation centres in 2016, despite not being able to afford it. The Gauteng Treasury had warned that the model was unsustainable and that no proper cost analysis had been conducted.

Life Nkanyisa is a subsidiary of the huge JSE-listed hospital company Life Healthcare, which in 2023 made more than R20-billion in revenue. The funds from the department were paid to a non-profit company, Nkanyisa Recovery Centre. A “management and administration” fee was then paid to Life Nkanyisa Pty Ltd, which is a for-profit company, a Life Nkanyisa spokesperson, who did not want to be named, told GroundUp.

According to Life Healthcare’s 2023 annual report, Life Nkanyisa is the “largest public-private healthcare partnership in South Africa”. Life Nkanyisa has contracts with several provincial health and social development departments. In 2023, these contracts delivered “consistent performance during the current period with revenues growing above inflation while the high occupancies and good cost management resulted in improved normalised [profit] margins.”

The Life Nkanyisa drug rehabilitation centres received their last subsidies from the department in 2023, after a forensic investigation was launched into all non-profit organisations funded by the department.

The investigation, spearheaded by former MEC for Social Development Mbali Hlophe, has been rubbished by several non-profit organisations, including various drug rehabilitation centres, which successfully appealed against findings against them.

However, the Life Nkanyisa centres were not cleared by the department and the findings against them have still not been made public.

The centres continued operating until the end of Life Nkanyisa’s contract for the 2023/24 financial year without receiving funding from the department. Life Healthcare believes that it is owed R187-million by the department for operating during this time.

In May 2024, Life Nkanyisa was informed by the department that its funding agreement would not be renewed. By the end of May, Life Nkanyisa stopped admitting new patients and the centres officially closed their doors on 12 July.

Life Nkanyisa’s spokesperson told GroundUp that since June 2024 the company had frequently engaged with the department on allegations against it, and had repeatedly asked for a copy of the investigative report from the department, even sending the department an official Public Access to Information (PAIA) request.

“While we have been told that a copy of the report is being prepared for distribution to us, to date we have not received it,” the spokesperson told GroundUp.

Although the department decided to stop funding the Life Nkanyisa centres, in November 2023 it used a similar model to fund a non-profit organisation linked to Clinix Health Group, another private company, for a 119-bed drug rehab. As GroundUp previously reported, that decision was pushed through in the space of three weeks.

Meanwhile, people seeking rehabilitation have been left stranded. The closure of Life Nkanyisa’s centres, as well as delays in payments by the department to other in-patient treatment centres in Gauteng, have led to the province severely missing its first quarter targets for drug rehabiliation.

The department aimed to sponsor 1,308 people to complete in-patient drug rehabilitation treatment in the first quarter of the department’s financial year (April-June 2024), but only 149 had done so by the end of the quarter.

There do not appear to be any plans to increase the capacity at other drug rehabs to compensate for the closure of Life Nkanyisa’s centres.

Left in the lurch

Last month former patients of the Witpoort Centre held a picket outside its closed gates asking for it to be reopened.

Thulani Manyathi, a former patient of the Witpoort Centre, told GroundUp that he is worried about others who struggle with substance use as for many, himself included, this was the only place in the area where they could seek help.

“It pains me a lot knowing the guy who’s currently on the street … who wants to quit, is not going to get the chance I got. That place really did a lot for me,” Manyathi told GroundUp.

He spent six weeks as an in-patient and a further year in the half-way house programme. After 18 years of struggling with substance use and having “reached rock bottom”, Manyathi said, the programmes Life Nkanyisa offered turned his life around.

According to Life Nkanyisa, the company hopes to resume operations by engaging with the department and addressing the funding challenges. “It is critical to find solutions to ensure that individuals struggling with substance abuse in Gauteng have access to the critical care they need and deserve,” the spokesperson said.

The Gauteng Department of Social Development did not respond to GroundUp’s queries. The Department has not responded to a single one of our queries since July.

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