Generator fails at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital

4 February 2022

The Democratic Alliance is concerned that a generator failed yesterday at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital, trapping a child and a social worker in a lift for an hour before power was restored.

It is unclear whether the power failure was due to load shedding as only Block 2 of the hospital was affected. Cancer patients were particularly inconvenienced as they had to go through Block 4 to reach the oncology unit.

This generator failure is yet another example of poor maintenance of this hospital over many years.

In November last year parts of the hospital were flooded by leaking pipes.

About 40% of the hospital is still not functional after the fire in April last year, and staff are despondent about the lack of action by the Gauteng Infrastructure Development Department which is notoriously incompetent and corrupt.

A private/public partnership is urgently needed to rescue this hospital and save the lives of hundreds of patients who are not getting specialist medical treatment.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, 4 February 2022