Cape Town - Health Minister Joe Phaahla says there are only 44 public hospitals out of 357 that have psychiatric in-patient units.
In replies to parliamentary questions, Phaahla said there were 1446 beds in the designated psychiatric in-patients units.
He was responding to questions from DA MP Haseena Ismail, who had asked the number of hospitals that have psychiatric units, the total number of mental health patients and a breakdown of hospitals in each province.
Phaahla said the 44 hospitals that have psychiatric units translated into 12.3% of the public health facilities.
He also said: “There are 14004 total numbers of beds available for mental health patients.”
His replies showed that KwaZulu-Natal has the most beds for mental health patients at 3028, followed by Gauteng with 2478, Western Cape 2067 and Eastern Cape 11816.
There were 1569 beds for mental health patients in Limpopo, 1446 in North West, 927 in Free State, 344 in Northern Cape and 329 in Mpumalanga.
Phaahla also said the Mental Health Care Act provided for designation of specialised standalone psychiatric hospitals and inpatient wards attached to general hospitals.
“This is a concurrent function of the national director-general of health and the provincial heads of departments.”
There are a total of 24 standalone psychiatric hospitals with 10963 beds for mental health patients countrywide.
Phaahla said the legislation further provided for a list of health establishments to conduct 72-hour assessment for involuntary mental health care, with designated beds for this purpose.
The public health facilities have 45 such hospitals with 1446 beds across the country.
According to Phaahla, other general hospitals rendered 72-hour assessment in medical wards as there were no dedicated beds for the service in those hospitals.
“This is the prerogative of the provincial heads of departments,” he said, adding that such hospitals have 1815 beds.
Phaahla’s responses come a week after Cape Times reported that about 6.5 million people need care for common mental disorders in South Africa.
The minister was quoted as saying it was estimated that 6 566 703 persons need care for common mental disorders.
Phaahla said a total of 1 292 991 of those, aged 15 and older, needed care for severe psychiatric conditions.
However, Phaahla said there were only 19 752 beds for psychiatric patients in the entire country.
“There are 14 060 beds in the public sector and 5692 in the private sector,” he was quoted as saying.
His replies painted a picture of massive shortages of psychiatric specialists in the public health services.
The public sector in the nine provinces has filled 451 positions of psychologists.
A total of 187 posts remained unfilled, leaving the vacancy rate at 29.31%.
Phaahla’s reply showed that only three provinces had employed a number of professionals.
The Western Cape is leading in hiring the most psychologists at 99, followed by North West with 41 and KwaZulu-Natal 35.
The rest of the provinces collectively hired 17 psychologists.
Limpopo has six psychologists, Free State four, Mpumalanga three and both Eastern Cape and Northern Cape two.
The total 187 vacancies are collectively shared between eight provinces with the exception of the Western Cape which accounts for a single vacant post.
Cape Times