While the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital is set to remain closed indefinitely after a fire last month, the much-needed oncology unit will reopen “before the end of the week”.
The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) visited the hospital on Tuesday on a fact-finding mission to determine the extent of damage to the facility and resulting disruptions to patient services, while assessing interim arrangements made for existing and new patients.
Commission spokesperson Buang Jones, who headed the delegation, said they had received numerous complaints, particularly from cancer patients who could no longer receive treatment at the hospital and were struggling to access the care they needed.
“In Gauteng you have a problem when a facility as big as the Charlotte Maxeke hospital cannot be used — where there are departments with unique services like oncology and dialysis, and then that is topped by the recent water outages we have seen at the Helen Joseph and Rahima Moosa Mother and Child hospitals. It is a crisis and becomes a human rights issue,” Jones said.
Commission officials, government officials and hospital management had “held fruitful discussions” on the matter.
“We are satisfied with the interventions that have been implemented and we will continue to monitor the situation.”
Meanwhile, Gift of the Givers stepped in with much-needed water and portable toilets for the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital.
The organisation’s Imtiaz Sooliman said on Tuesday they were approached by hospital staff and management requesting bottled water, portable toilets and any practical assistance to augment the water tankers arriving daily.
He said the water crisis could not have come at a more inopportune time, with rapidly rising Covid-19 numbers in the third wave in Gauteng.
“Rahima Moosa is one of the feeder hospitals for the temporarily shut Charlotte Maxeke hospital, healthcare workers trying to catch up with non-Covid conditions between the second and third wave, and add to that a desperate community in the vicinity of the hospital thronging to the hospital in search of drinking water, clearly exacerbating Covid-19 risk.
“Gift of the Givers drilling teams will be arriving at the hospital shortly, having been granted permission by the management and infrastructure team to drill for water. Our geologist, Dr Gideon Groenewald, has identified the drilling site.
“Existing, defunct boreholes will be assessed with a view to resuscitate them, while drilling for new boreholes, then pumping water directly into the hospital infrastructure using booster pumps and setting up taps outside the hospital for community usage once the water has been tested and approved for human consumption [will be undertaken].”
He said the hospital was “in crisis”, as was the community around it.
“Water delivery to the hospital and to the region shut down inexplicably on May 19, with no clear explanation from the relevant water authority as to the cause of the problem. This was mentioned by the hospital CEO in a media interview, who went on to say that at first it was thought that pump failure due to load-shedding was the cause, but now seems that ageing water infrastructure is the challenge.”
Gauteng’s health department on Monday raised concerns about the knock-on effects of water disruptions in Johannesburg on facilities such as the Helen Joseph and Rahima Moosa Mother and Child hospitals.
Provincial health spokesperson Kwara Kekana said a power failure reported by Rand Water at the weekend affected Johannesburg and Rand West City, Merafong City and Mogale City local municipalities.
It caused reservoirs to run low and affected the supply of water to Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital and Leratong Hospital on the West Rand.
“Furthermore, the ongoing water disruptions at Brixton, Crosby and Hursthill areas continue to affect water supply to the Helen Joseph hospital and Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital,” she said.
During the visit to Charlotte Maxeke hospital, Gauteng acting director-general Thabo Masebe said government was pleased the SAHRC had stepped in and that their concerns and recommendations would be acted upon.
Masebe said the hospital had been shut down on April 17 after a fire in the basement that caused major damage — the costs of which remain unknown and cannot yet be calculated.
“At the time, we were confident that the repairs could be done quickly and the premier (David Makhura) estimated that it would take about seven days for the hospital to get back to full service,” Masebe said.
“But once we started assessing the damage and looking at the impact on different parts of the hospital it became clear we needed more time. Smoke got into the airconditioning system and travelled all over. And there are a lot of regulations and bylaws we have to comply with.”
Masebe said the oncology unit was situated in a building that is separated from the main hospital by a single passage. This meant it could be repaired more quicklyand a separate entrance created. It will be ready to operate by the end of this week.
In the meantime, work is ongoing in the rest of the hospital. Contractors are busy with repairs and work is being done to prop up the damaged section to ensure the building doesn’t collapse.
Once the props are solidly in place, forensic investigators will be the first to go in and determine the cause of the fire and who or what was responsible for the blaze. Once this has been done, action will be taken.
Thulani Mdadane, newly appointed head of the department of infrastructure development, said his job was to ensure the hospital is repaired in compliance with all bylaws.
“We have commissioned a specialist fire engineer; we have our own professional team and other specialists. We are developing safety plans and there are more than 23 contractors already working,” he said, adding that air-quality checks would be completed before the reopening of the oncology section.
After that unit reopens, the rest of the hospital will be reopened in phases, with blocks one and two next in line.
“We will make announcements after that for the others,” Mdadane said, adding that the structural integrity of the building was of main concern and could require the demolition and reconstruction of some parts.
“But only once the police have handed the building back to us will we be able to do a thorough structural assessment.”
He said it was not yet possible to give an estimated time frame, nor was it possible to estimate the costs involved, other than to confirm that personal protective equipment valued at R40m had been destroyed.
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