Parts of Charlotte Maxeke Hospital to be fully operational in 2023

The timetable for the medium-term infrastructure completion of the areas affected by the fire at the Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital in Johannesburg is 2023.

According to the Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday, this was revealed in a written response by the Gauteng MEC for Infrastructure Development Tasneem Motara.

The date remains unknown as it will be “dependent on the outcome of the forensic investigation and the detailed structural investigation recommendations.”

DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health Jack Bloom said this was concerning as there was no budget allocation in the current financial year to fix the hospital, and funds would be sourced from existing maintenance and other budgets which may not be sufficient.

“R100 million has been requested for remedial work for the fire, but there is no estimated construction cost as yet for the repair of the most damaged part of the hospital. I estimate that it will likely be about R1 billion for full repairs,” said Bloom

“Meanwhile, more than 2300 patients wait for cataract operations at the hospital, and there are huge backlogs for other types of surgery that affects hundreds of others.”

He said that there were fears that the provincial departments would not be capable of meeting their own targets to fix the damage.

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According to Motara, there is a need for “alternative solutions to make the hospital compliant to the latest legislation.”

Professional service providers were commissioned to investigate the relevant requirements for electrical, structural, mechanical, architectural, fire and general occupational health and safety. 

A phased approach has been adopted as follows:

• Short term – certificate of occupation received for Radiology and Oncology.
• Medium term – areas declared structurally safe and deemed critical by clinicians.
• Long term – areas that were damaged by the fire and declared structurally unsafe in the Northern side of the hospital.