Public Lecture: Monumental Failure: Forgetting the Victims of the Life Esidimeni Tragedy; Speaker: Nontsasa Nako

Virtual via Zoom, 27th April 2021

Abstract

144 mental health patients died, and 44 went missing after the Gauteng department of health moved nearly 1500 mental health care users from the Life Esidimeni facilities into 27 private NGOs, which became known as the Life Esidimeni tragedy. The public outcry and the outrage that followed when the true horror of the Esidimeni saga was revealed, particularly from the health Ombud’s report, pressured the Gauteng government into arbitration. This presentation looks at the arbitration award; particular the injunction that the provincial government should erect a monument “to commemorate the suffering and loss caused by the Gauteng Mental Health Marathon Project.” What would such a monument look like? Would it pay tribute to those lost? Change public discourses around disability or it simply “settle the matter” in the public mind and hasten the erasure of the victims from public discourse”?

Nontsasa Nako, PhD (Binghamton) is a senior lecturer with the Department of Media, Language and Communication, at the Durban University of Technology. She has published book chapters and journal articles on race, sexuality, gender, and disability. Her work focuses on black women and representation.