LIFE ESIDIMENI, portraits of lives lost

136pp., colour illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2024

In 2015, the Gauteng Department of Health announced the termination of its outsourced care contract with a private health care provider, Life Esidimeni, which had been providing specialised psychiatric care to state patients. Despite many attempts to warn the Department of the consequences of transferring these patients to facilities incapable of providing the care they needed, in early 2016 some 1500 state patients were removed from Life Esidimeni and relocated to cheaper care centres. Later investigations revealed that many of the NGOs and community care facilities were unlicensed and grossly under-resourced. In 2016, it was discovered that 144 patients had died from causes including starvation and neglect. 

Mark Lewis and Harriet Perlman photographed and interviewed the families who had lost loved ones.

Producer, scriptwriter, editor and writer Harriet Perlman has worked in film, television and publishing for over 30 years. She is currently working with Heartlines on their Fathers Matter campaign and with composer Philip Miller to create a vogue-opera on the life of gay anti-apartheid activist Simon Nkoli.

Mark Lewis is an urban photographer based in Johannesburg. He has completed the tenth book in the popular series of Johannesburg stories, Wake Up, This is Joburg with writer and urban planner, Tanya Zack.