The whereabouts of the family of a 72-year-old elderly woman who died of apparent food poisoning at the Gelvan Park Frail Care Centre in Port Elizabeth are unknown.

Nomatshyina Violet died on Monday night when 59 people were rushed to hospital after falling ill last night.

Nelson Mandela Bay Deputy Mayor, Mongameli Bobani, led a team of senior officials from the Municipality's Environmental Health Sub-directorate to inspect the facility on Tuesday.

He said according to information from the Frail Care Manager, Make Faszanai, the outbreak may have been caused by left over chicken from Saturday that was reheated and fed to the residents for lunch on Sunday.

Bobani said besides Violet's case, the municipality also discovered that there were bogus home addresses on the forms of 63 of the 98 residents, while those residents have also not received any visitors since being admitted to the facility, many several years ago.

Bobani said the municipality has requested the Environmental Heath Department to work with social workers to find the families of the residents.

"We have to find the families, we have actually requested our Environmental Department to look at the application forms and also to work with social workers in order to ensure that we find them. We are appealing to the community to also come and find their families. This is the problem that we have right now and it must be fixed" he said.

Bobani also requested the public to assist in identifying Violet's family before the facility can proceed with her burial arrangements. (Refer to the deceased's identity document photo)

The municipality has also launched an investigation to find out the cause of the incident and have also ordered it's public health directorate to check if there were any compliance issues.







