Gauteng DA slams alleged generator failure at Bara Hospital

Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto suffered a generator failure on Monday, the DA in Gauteng claimed on Wednesday.

“I am most concerned that Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital has suffered today from generator failure to supply power to certain operating theatres,” Gauteng MPL Jack Bloom said in a statement.

South Africa is currently experiencing stage 2 of load shedding.

The hospital recently made headlines after 24 employees had to be disciplined for absenteeism, which cost the hospital thousands of workdays last year alone.

This, in turn, affected service delivery at the public hospital.

In addition, Bloom said there have been unexplained bouts of the power tripping since early on Wednesday.

“Non-emergency operations in the orthopaedic theatres have had to be cancelled and there have been problems at the maternity unit as well,” he added.

It is not clear what caused the generator to fail at this stage.

“Eskom’s unanticipated load shedding has led to enormous problems for hospitals which generally only use generator power for emergency operations.

“The tragedy is that staff and patients are traumatised by power failures and the surgery waiting list grows longer,” Bloom said.

News24 reached out to the Gauteng Department of Health on Wednesday for comment. It will be added once it is received.

The department previously told News24 the hospital was operating with approximately 17 generators.

“The biggest one can run for 10 days straight uninterrupted if it is full to capacity fuel wise,” its spokesperson, Kwara Kekana, told News24 last Wednesday.

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