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- It has almost been a year since a fire broke out at parts of the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital.
- The Gauteng Department of Health says it is doing everything humanly possible to speed up the pace to finish refurbishments
- The partial handover of the hospital's Emergency Unit has commenced and will be followed by a deep cleaning of the affected area and an inspection by the City of Joburg to check for compliance.
Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi says the health department is doing everything humanly possible to finish work on the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital following a fire that broke out almost a year ago.
The department has been under scrutiny for the slow pace in fixing parts of the hospital damaged by the April fire.
"MEC Mokgethi acknowledged that public calls and concerns from the health sector about the pace of the work to refurbish the hospital following the fire incident that occurred almost a year ago are not without merit given the impact of a partially functioning Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital on other nearby facilities such as Helen Joseph Hospital and Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital," it said on Tuesday.
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On Thursday, the partial handover of the hospital's Emergency Unit commenced and will be followed by a deep cleaning and an inspection by the City of Johannesburg to check for compliance.
The following will also take place: installation of health technology equipment; retraining of staff on evacuation procedures and the recalling of Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital casualty staff that were placed at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital and Helen Joseph Hospital, including surrounding facilities, to reopen the casualty at Charlotte Maxeke.
"The work to complete the casualty section suffered a setback recently due to theft of copper piping, electrical wiring and circuit breakers from the works and disruption of the site by the local community. Security at the site has since been beefed up with restrictions to the affected areas," said the department.
It also appealed to the public to help safeguard health facilities in light of the thefts.
Meanwhile, the department said the Development Bank of Southern Africa, which is an implementing agent, was finalising a detailed implementation plan to be signed off before the end of March 2022.
"This follows the handover of all the project files by the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development and Property Management on 4 March," it added.
