Patients suffer as 220 staff resign and 667 posts are vacant at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital

17 March 2022

While efforts are being made to fully reopen the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital (CMJH), there have been 220 staff resignations since the fire last year and there are currently 677 vacant posts.

According to a written reply to my questions to Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi, the following posts at the hospital are vacant:

Nurses 355
Medical 88
Admin and Support 209
Allied 25

Before the fire the total staff was 4982, but this has dropped now to 4812, partly due to the resignations of 91 nurses and 68 doctors.

According to Mokgethi: “The reduction of staff is due to resignation, retirement, death and contract expired”, and “staff resignations were related to better remuneration, promotions and travelling costs between home and work.”

Mokgethi says that there is a shortage of professional nurses, critical care and psychiatrically trained nurse specialists.

Departments that are closed at the hospital include medical emergency casualties, infectious wards and mental health. A total of 312 CMJH staff have been deployed to other hospitals to assist with CMJH patients, but this is inadequate and treatment backlogs are growing alarmingly.

I am not surprised by the resignations as staff morale is low as they are frustrated by the slow pace of fixing the hospital and the parking crisis that hits them every day.

Meanwhile, patients suffer the most with waiting lists for treatment growing longer and longer.

My DA colleagues in Parliament will be pressing the National Health Department to involve the best skills in the private sector to get this hospital fully functional as soon as possible.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, 17 March 2022