Imagine a place full of starving people who have not eaten in days. A room full of starving people who find that when they finally get food, it's rotten and inedible. A room full of sick people, who have not received their proper medication. A room full of poor people who are wearing pants that are being kept together by shoelaces.

These places exist and they were found in mental health facilities in South Africa. The units are run by charitable organizations, and in effort to save money, the health department began to transfer patients into these facilities.

The patients were being transferred from a unit of a private hospital group called Life Healthcare Group, to 27 of the charitable organizations.

Different corpses were found with head injuries, markings, and bruises that were all unaccounted for.

Once the South African government opened up an investigation, they found 94 victims that died due to negligence by these facilities.

The investigation was first opened last September when they found 36 dead patients after they were moved to the facilities ran by the charitable organizations. The death toll was found to be near 100 according to Professor Malegapuru W. Makgoba, the South African ombudsman.

The report that Professor Makgoba did on these facilities said that all 27 of the organizations were running under invalid licenses. Meaning, that the deaths of the patients who were transferred there are deemed unlawful.

This investigation is calling for criminal persecutions. Family members and loved ones of these patients were not even notified of their deaths.

Actions like these are inexcusable and justice must be served.

Barney Mthombothi, the former editor of a South African business publication, Financial Mail, tweeted the following: “If 94 mental patients had died from official negligence in a normal democracy the entire national gov't would have been forced to resign.”

No truer words have been spoken. Let’s begin to look out for mental illness patients worldwide and be advocates for those without the power of a voice.

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