Yesterday marked exactly a year since parts of the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital were gutted by a fire, and the facility is nowhere near full functionality. The fire occurred in the grip of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The fire started in block four, raged overnight and was only fully contained about a day later.
Over 840 patients were referred to 17 different facilities, including the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic and Helen Joseph Hospitals. Hours after the fire broke out, Gauteng Premier David Makhura came out to reassure the people of his province, saying, ‘It is not an easy decision that we had to make but within seven days, we are confident that hospital services will be resumed.’
But a year on, the facility is not fully operational. The hospital’s Clinical Director, Dr Jayshina Punwasi, explains, ‘We planned to have the accident and emergency areas in December 2021, however, when we were on-site the engineers said “Doc, I’m sorry but we can’t open this area, it’s not safe for patients to come in”, so we decided not to open the facility.’
The Oncology Unit is open, but emergency and trauma units have not been available since the blaze.
The hospital has also faced several incidents of vandalism, theft and poor workmanship, causing further delays.
National Health Department’s Infrastructure head, Ayanda Dakela, has said ‘The Emergency Unit is almost 96% complete. We are hoping to hand over operation before the end of April.’
Dakela had promised to deliver at half the amount for which it was budgeted: at just R728 million.
The Health Department’s Infrastructure Unit has promised a hand-over of the entire completed hospital by the end of next year.
[Photo: Itumeleng English/ African News Agency (ANA)]