After months of an incapacitated casualty ward and disruptions to other services, there is still no indication of when the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital will be fully functioning again.
In April last year, the hospital was closed after parts of the building were gutted by fire.
This put further strain on Gauteng’s healthcare system as preparations were under way for a third wave of COVID-19 and then a fourth.
It’s understood that parts of the facility that were destroyed by fire will only reopen next year.
When the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital caught fire, the blaze raged overnight and was contained about a day later.
Patients were evacuated and relocated to neighbouring facilities, including the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic and Helen Joseph hospitals.
While the facility was being rebuilt, patients continued to be redirected to those facilities but in June the hospital opened only its oncology unit for cancer patients.
A few months on, things seemed to be returning to some normality but then in November parts of the hospital were flooded due to a burst pipe.
This triggered head of internal medicine, Professor Adam Mohammed, to speak out about the working conditions at the hospital.
“We are not fire compliant but we knew this going in. It’s better being in the building we are currently in and offering a service than offering more services to our patients. This is where we work,” Mohammed said.
He said that the hospital could not provide even the most basic services.
“We’re pushing for too much. We know that CMAH is a tier-one centre and the burden on Bara trauma and Helen Joseph is unbelievable. People are queueing dying in casualty waiting for treatment,” he said.
It’s unclear how the hospital has been handling trauma cases during the festive season or if they have been handling any at all.
In a statement, the Gauteng provincial government said that it would only be giving an update once all necessary approvals had been finalized.
-EWN
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