Charlotte Maxeke hospital at 90%, but parking problems, deadline challenges continue

Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital is running at 90%, with 974 beds compared with its pre-fire capacity of 1,068 beds, the national health department says.

All specialities are present and the hospital is bringing back the female psychiatry ward, based at Helen Joseph Hospital.

But while the department says repairs and restorations are on track, patients are still battling to access services, waiting lists remain unacceptably long, and the massive parking problem persists.

It has been three months since health minister Joe Phaahla, acting infrastructure and development MEC Jacob Mamabolo, health MEC Dr Nomathemba Mokgethi, hospital CEO Gladys Bogoshi and clinical director Dr Jay Punwasi addressed journalists at a walkabout at the casualty section.

The devastating fire that led to the closure of the hospital more than a year ago started in the basement parking. Since then the entire parkade, which accommodates about 1,000 vehicles, remains closed, and all staff, patients and visitors are left to park in the streets surrounding the hospital. This means a wait of up to an hour for space for those unable to walk far distances, or a walk of up to 2km for those left to snag any available spot.

The department did not respond to questions by TimesLIVE Premium on the parking situation.

DA shadow health MEC Jack Bloom said the parking problem has not been alleviated and remains unaddressed.

“I asked the hospital if a request had been sent to the neighbouring Emoyeni Conference Centre for permission to use their parking facilities. It’s next door, it’s a provincial conference centre, and they have plenty of bays standing open. But I was told to ask the health department,” Bloom said.

Adding to the challenges was the fact that the hospital's outdated switchboard crashed and was down for several weeks. The health department has confirmed that it has been repaired and is working again.

Regarding walk-in patients, CMJAH is a central, quaternary, academic hospital which takes complicated patients who cannot be seen at lower levels of care. Our patients are mostly referrals from other hospitals. The hospital should not be seeing walk-in patients.

—  Motalatale Modiba, Gauteng health department

Commenting on the latest figures available to him, Bloom said 780 operations had been cancelled at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital last year, leading to a surgery waiting list of 2,677 patients.

Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi said the largest waiting list was for orthopaedic surgery, where there were 833 patients who could wait up to two years, and as at the end of July there were 453 child patients waiting between six months to two years for surgery.

The reasons for the cancellations, she said, included insufficient theatre time, a shortage of ICU beds compounded by Covid-19 disruptions and the partial closure of the hospital.

Motalatale Modiba, of the Gauteng health department, said: “For outpatients, the hospital is between 70% and 75% (55,000) compared to pre-fire capacity (about 70,000 outpatients a month).”

He said this was because 20% of the clinical space is “undergoing fire remedial work or is inaccessible as it is above the fire-damaged area”.

He said the new CAT scanner that was vandalised soon after being installed at casualty had been repaired, and the accident and emergency section was fully operational.

“Regarding walk-in patients, CMJAH is a central, quaternary, academic hospital which takes complicated patients who cannot be seen at lower levels of care. Our patients are mostly referrals from other hospitals. The hospital should not be seeing walk-in patients as they are meant to be seen at primary level clinics, community health centres and district level hospitals,” Modiba said.

He said the reopening of the hospital — planned section by section with deadlines given — was delayed as the “time frames originally communicated” were to be prolonged.

“The clinicians opted to remain within the hospital as opposed to decanting to other facilities to ensure continuation of the highly specialised services that the hospital provides. The priority was to maintain the clinical footprint post-fire, while the hospital undergoes remedial work. To ensure that this clinical footprint is maintained, the remedial work is being carried out on a block-by-block approach, with services moving to different areas inside the hospital as opposed to multiple facilities outside the hospital,” he said.

Modiba said the Gauteng health department had not yet received any forensic report relating to the fire.

Meanwhile, Maverick Citizen on September 4 published excerpts from a SAPS forensic report that shows arson was the cause and recommended further investigation by the SAPS. The affidavit detailing the findings was dated August 27 2021.