Mental healthcare provision in the Eastern Cape

Province is inextricably entwined with the province’s colonial past and, in later years, by the introduction of the policy of apartheid and the Bantustans. These laid the foundation for an inequitable distribution of mental health services in the province. The objective of this article is to provide a background for the historical factors that have had an impact on the provision of public sector mental health services. The archives of the British Medical Journal and the South African Medical Journal and universities in South Africa were accessed to obtain the information presented here. History and geography played a pivotal role in shaping the Eastern Cape first into Bantustans and later the Eastern Cape Province in a democratic South Africa (SA) (Figs. 1 and 2). Mostert[1] in hi