Dear Honourable Minister,
Allow me to apologise for addressing you publicly. I do so with respect and confidence that, as a public servant who has often affirmed the value of accountability, you will receive this letter in good faith.
Honourable Minister, I am sure that, like me, you would agree with the wisdom in the saying that the measure of any society is found in how it treats its most vulnerable. In our society and among our communities, metseng le metsaneng, you and I would also agree that there are none more vulnerable than those members of our community commonly labelled as mahlanya. You need only look outside the tinted windows of your official luxury 4X4 convoy to see the consequences: men and women living with severe mental illness wandering our streets, rummaging through rubbish, exposed to violence, stigma and weather alike. Their dehumanisation has become normalised to the point where we casually refer to them as lehlanya, as though they were less than human. Their suffering is visible, but their lives remain invisible to the state entrusted with their care.
These members of our families, who suffer from mental illness, often suffer loss of human dignity, rights, and humanity in the way they are generally regarded by the public. This neglect is symptomatic of the state of mental health services in our country under your leadership. While this is not entirely to be blamed on your government alone, it is nevertheless a stain on our national conscience and a sustained moral and political failure your government has happily ignored and politically sidelined because it is not a vote-winner.
The 2023 Ombudsman’s report laid this stain bare, and yet as we speak, its findings remain unimplemented and its urgency ignored. This failure is embodied most painfully in Mohlomi Hospital, our sole psychiatric referral centre, named after a healer whose values of botho and compassion we have clearly abandoned. I understand that you recently promised a new hospital and rehabilitation centre. When, Honourable Minister, should Basotho expect the sod-turning, or was this yet another well-timed political proclamation?
Honourable Minister, the definition of health you are sworn to uphold is clear: health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being.” Mental health is not an optional add-on to the health system; it is central to it. It should be your benchmark, your key performance indicator.
A recent visit to this hospital by international medical professionals and members of the Basotho diaspora community working with LeBoHA was not only an embarrassment but revealed conditions that not only are heartbreaking, but fall far short of the ideals of Chief Mohlomi. In the forensic unit—built for 30 patients—over 80 people are crammed into a space unfit for dignified human life. The place is overcrowded, and nothing works. As one of them narrating this sorry saga said, “Bo ’Me le bo Ntate, kannete ke mahlomola a tšabehang.” Some of the visitors wept. They wept because what they saw was not an unfortunate oversight, but systematic neglect that has been allowed to fester under successive governments and now under your leadership.
Honourable Minister, it should trouble you deeply, or any Minister of Health worth his salt, that these words describe the very institution entrusted with caring for our most vulnerable citizens, and this is happening under your leadership as the Minister of Health. Equally, it should trouble the conscience of a Minister of Health of a proud nation like Lesotho that these issues are not new. I remind you, Minister, of the 2023 Ombudsman’s Report, which documented gross failures at Mohlomi hospital that have yet to be addressed, including by your government. They include severe shortages of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, and occupational therapists; forensic unit overcrowding at nearly three times capacity, broken infrastructure, damaged water pipes, non-functional toilets, failing showers, inadequate heating and ventilation.
As if this was not enough, Honourable Minister, the report went further and lamented how patients have irregular food supply, insufficient bedding, lack of clothing and toiletries for patients and at the time, a national mental health policy and strategy was left unapproved for years.
This is not a list of recommendations, Honourable Minister, it is an indictment, a moral judgment on you as the Minister at the helm of the Ministry of Health now. This report, Honourable Minister, is sitting on your desk gathering dust, forgotten, much like those relatives of ours trapped within Mohlomi Hospital decay. The report is not merely an observation; it is an indictment of systemic failure, Honourable Minister. Its findings confirm what many Basotho have long known and explain the exodus of many professionals, leaving the country, who have lost hope at the sight of the mental health system that is progressively collapsing.
For decades, mental health has survived through donor goodwill, NGO interventions, and the resilience of underpaid health workers, Minister, as successive governments have politically sidelined it. This is not sustainable, Honourable Minister, nor is it befitting of us as a country that claims to value the dignity of every person, even those whom we derogatorily call mahlanya.
Surely, Minister, you would agree with me that as a leader, you can do better. Mohlomi Hospital should be a place of healing, compassion and where the personal dignity of people and their health is restored. Instead, it has become a national embarrassment, a sorry saga of inadequate resources, poor provision of mental health services and support to individuals and families, and above all, a symbol of the government’s inaction and lack of caring.
Honourable Minister, the time for speeches has passed. The time for decisive leadership is now. Lesotho and Basotho, both in and outside the country, are watching, Minister. What concrete steps are you going to take to improve the situation at Mohlomi hospital?
This letter is written not out of hostility Honourable Minister, but out of a deep sense of duty. A duty shared by many Basotho and healthcare professionals at home and abroad. It is written because our people deserve better. It is written because mental illness should never condemn a person to invisibility, indignity, or despair. And it is written because the future of Mohlomi Hospital, and the fate of every Mosotho living with mental illness depends on decisive leadership and action now, not rhetoric.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Chris Mokolatsie
Thaban’a Mahlanya,
Thaba-Tseka
Summary
- Honourable Minister, I am sure that, like me, you would agree with the wisdom in the saying that the measure of any society is found in how it treats its most vulnerable.
- While this is not entirely to be blamed on your government alone, it is nevertheless a stain on our national conscience and a sustained moral and political failure your government has happily ignored and politically sidelined because it is not a vote-winner.
- Honourable Minister, it should trouble you deeply, or any Minister of Health worth his salt, that these words describe the very institution entrusted with caring for our most vulnerable citizens, and this is happening under your leadership as the Minister of Health.
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