Budget reprioritising impacts negatively on Epilepsy Geduld
Following the decision to redirect millions of rands toward food security, homelessness, and substance abuse, Geduld Epilepsy Centre social workers may be subject to possible retrenchments.
After the Gauteng Department of Social Development (DSD) decided to reallocate millions of rands towards substance abuse, homelessness, and food security, the humanitarian crisis in the province continue to grow.
This is in response to the request made by Mbali Hlophe, MEC of Social Development, who said the department will be restructuring and re-prioritising funds during a meeting with NGOs on April 5 at Gallagher Estate in Midrand.
Due to the restructuring, non-compliant NGOs and some day-visiting NGOs that are not offering critical services will no longer get critical government funding.
On April 9, Hlophe refuted claims the budget for NPOs has been cut, citing that the budget of R2.3b allocated to NPOs remains.
“Residential care services to older persons, child and youth care centres, shelters for women and those with disabilities will remain funded accordingly.”
The Geduld Epilepsy branch has joined other NGOs in Springs that seem to be affected by the crisis.
The director of Geduld Epilepsy Centre, Aileen Langley, admitted that she now, for the first time, feels as though everything is about to fall apart.
Even though a service-level agreement (SLA) was signed, Langley added that as of now, they haven’t received funding.
“As a result, we won’t be able to pay our employees on time and won’t have enough money to pay our social workers either.”
Langley stated that on April 21, they got a letter dated March 29 informing them that the funding application for the social work program had been rejected, which could result in a possible retrenchment of employees.
“The facility’s social workers are responsible for providing psychological services, public awareness campaigns, and educational activities.
“They conduct home visits to begin the screening process for patients, conduct telephone counselling, and engage in extensive work with day workers’ and residents’ families,” Langley added.
Langley believes it was unreasonable for DSD to reprioritise the budget without addressing NGOs, stakeholders, or beneficiaries and without weighing the devastating consequences.
“They should have given us notices a few months earlier if they were aware of their plans, considering that the financial year ends on March 31.
“Despite receiving funds for our residential care and two protective workshops, we are unable to use that money to pay the social workers.
“With funding being cut it means we will only now be able to care for those who reside at our facility.”
Currently, the facility has an assistant director, two social auxiliary workers, and four social workers.
“Each function carries a lot of work, and nobody else would be able to do it better than the current employees,” Langley continued.
“I feel like we would turn into a place that gives out food and medicine if the social workers had to leave.”
Langley stated that there would be possible retrenchments for the staff, but they are looking at all ways to save their jobs.
“We do owe our staff a retrenchment package; however, we don’t have the money. Our option would be to apply for a loan at the bank if they’d allow us to get one. The main worry is what will happen to the residents?”
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“The residential care funding is not even half of our budget, which means we’ll need to find ways to look for donations and help raise funds. If not, we’ll have to close the facility.”
“If we decide to close, we’ll have to hand over all of the cases to DSD, which means we’ll have to deal with another catastrophe similar to Life Esidimeni,” Langley said.
“This is more than simply a roof over our resident’s heads; it’s a specialised residential facility.”
Epilepsy Geduld currently has 103 residents living at the facility, as well as 112-day workers who work at the protective workshops.
Langley said that the parents of the facility’s day workers have offered to help with providing their families with extra transportation money and lunch rather than relying on the facility to provide them with meals.
“Although it is not entirely allowed for us to let parents help, we have informed the board that this is a temporary arrangement due to the financial crisis,” Langley concluded.
