Hospital squatters raise hackles
2005-02-14 23:12
Cape Town - If all goes well with the government's emergency plans, about 650 victims of the Joe Slovo squatter-camp fire should be rehoused on Tygerberg Hospital's premises by next week.
Employees of A & H Building Services - to whom the tender for the alterations was awarded - were working full-steam at the weekend to prepare the separate building near the eastern entrance to the hospital for the new inhabitants, expected to move in at the end of this week.
A long wire fence has already been put up to separate the building from the rest of the hospital premises.
According to architect's plans by Revel Fox and Partners, the building will provide for 62 bedrooms, which will accommodate six, eight, 10 and 12 people.
Apart from a common dining room, the inhabitants will have bathing facilities with showers and a kitchen with running hot water.
About 20 bunk beds and an equal number of mattresses had been stacked in one of the wings of the building by Friday.
'Will become a problem'
In the meanwhile, local residents made it known they were not at all impressed by the government's decision to move the Joe Slovo inhabitants on to their doorstep.
Sophia Buttress, who has worked as a general assistant at the hospital for many years, said: "This eventually will become the problem of the residents of this area.
"We have sympathy with the fire victims, but why could they not be moved to either Conradie or Woodstock hospitals?
"Are those, maybe, too near Pinelands, where rich people live?"
Buttress said people were worried that housebreakings and robberies would increase as a result of many jobless people moving into the confined space.
"Ratepayers fear the value of their property will drop.
"What's more, it is going to be difficult eventually to move these people elsewhere in view of the facilities that they will now have," she said.