Water restored at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital but parts of Joburg still dry

The Gauteng department of health (GDoH) confirmed on Tuesday afternoon that water supply problems at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital were resolved.

The department initially said the hospital began experiencing low water pressure in the early hours of Monday morning. Technicians discovered Johannesburg Water had cut the supply to the facility’s bulk water tanks on September 13.

The health department's acting head of communications Khutso Rabothata said Johannesburg Water provided seven water trucks on Monday evening, adding to the four trucks sourced by the health department. He said that by 11am Tuesday the supply to the hospital had been restored.

“The main reservoir is now 50% full and is distributing water to other blocks within the facility. The department greatly appreciates the patience and understanding of the public,” he said. 

He added that GDoH remains committed to working closely with relevant authorities to ensure a reliable and sustainable water supply for all health facilities and ensure uninterrupted healthcare services to the community.

For the past few days, Johannesburg suburbs have been hit by outages, with Killarney experiencing six days without water. The entity had previously attributed the outages to high consumption with a level 1 water restriction in place. 

Wayne Ford from the New Killarney-Riviera Association said communication from Joburg Water had been poor. “For a long time, they merely told us that the reservoir was empty because demand exceeded supply,” he said. 

He added the entity was never able to explain how the outages suddenly happened. “We did not suddenly get 50,000 extra residents in one week. The water demand is much the same as it was before but the supply has seemingly evaporated.

“We have contacted Rand Water Board, who are telling us they are supplying Joburg as normal, so now nobody believes Joburg Water any more. They recently invented a new explanation, in that apparently there was an airlock in a supply pipe which had been obstructing the flow of water,” he said. 

He added that it doesn’t explain why it took them six days to think of this or to find it and clear it.

“Now we are told that all available water is being diverted to the hospital, but we don’t yet know if this means the supply problem has been fixed, or if there is even an end in sight. Our ward councillors are not getting any answers either, so they can’t help us at all. The lack of reliable information has made the situation a lot harder than is probably necessary,” he said. 

He said water had started flowing in slowly on Tuesday evening and they didn't know if it would be a permanent fix or if it was just their turn to get a bit of water before water-shedded again. 

WaterCAN executive manager Ferrial Adam said the Johannesburg Water system was under strain because of the high demand due to warmer temperatures and the many leaks. She said that reduced the amount in the reservoirs as they were running dry faster.

“I think Joburg Water kept saying there is high demand but there is a high number of leaks and there is a high demand.

“But it seems like the blame is put completely on consumers — we also need to understand that there are leaks that need to be fixed. What I think is happening is that they have been looking at how to reconfigure the system,” she said. 

She said while levels in Rosebank were starting to improve, in other parts the entity was still closing the pipes as they needed to fill up the reservoirs at night for water in the morning. 

“That seems to be the norm — what we need Joburg Water to do is to tell us honestly where exactly they are doing this and how often they are doing it so that we are not assuming. The issue is the lack of communication. We need clear communication,” she said. 

She added that residents needed to understand that it is not just high demand but there are water leaks and they want to know how Joburg Water is dealing with that. 

“We do have to abide by the limitations because we have been getting restrictions. Every year from September to March, because we have a high summer, there are restrictions in Gauteng and the truth is we cannot carry on as if we have water forever.

“As consumers, we also need to be mindful and change our relationship with water. We need to save more and we need to reduce how much we are using,” she said. 

Johannesburg Water issued a notice on Tuesday that it will be closing Sandton meters in the evening from 8pm until 4am the following day as part of demand management efforts. 

The entity said this was to ensure water distribution to struggling systems and areas within the Johannesburg Water network. 

This will affect the Linbro Park and Marlboro direct feeds mostly during these interventions, and all customers fed by the Sandton system may experience poor pressure to no water overnight.

Once the meter is reopened in the morning, it will take several hours for the system to fully recover.

Areas affected by the Sandton system:

• Linbro Park Direct Feed
• Marlboro Direct Feed
• Linbro Park Reservoir
• Marlboro Reservoir
• Illovo Reservoir and Illovo Tower
• Bryanston Reservoir and Bryanston Tower
• Morningside Reservoir

The entity requested customers to repair leaks on their properties as these also contributed to the high demand.

“Residents are requested to observe level 1 water restrictions, which are implemented from September 1 to March 31,” it said. 

At the time of publishing, Johannesburg Water had not yet to responded to questions sent by TimesLIVE. The story will be updated when received. 

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