Aircon breakdown leads to unbearable temperatures at Joburg hospital

Air conditioning problems continue to plague the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital in Parktown, according to DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC Jack Bloom.

Speaking to Rosebank Killarney Gazette, Bloom said he had received complaints about unbearable hot temperatures in a number of wards at the hospital, which prompted a visit to the facility to assess the problem.

READ MORE: More than 800 baby deaths recorded at Charlotte Maxeke hospital

“I found that wards on the eighth and ninth floors are either too hot or too cold instead of at a constant comfortable temperature,” explained Bloom. “The air conditioning system mixes chilled water and heated air from the boilers in order to achieve the ideal temperature, and it appears that this is breaking down due to equipment failures.

“Extremely hot days cause a problem because one of the six air conditioning machines at the hospital is broken.”

Bloom continued that a management shake-up at the hospital is needed to ensure a safe and pleasant environment for patients and staff. He added that the maintenance staff, who fall under the Department of Infrastructure Development, however, continues to fail in fixing the many structural problems that plague the hospital.

Theo Nkonki, spokesperson for the Gauteng department of infrastructure development, said the new approach to maintenance of health facilities in the province of Gauteng, unveiled in October last year, seeks to ensure a proactive intervention as opposed to the traditional reactive approach to infrastructure maintenance.

“In the traditional approach, defects are fixed and attended to as and when items break or fail. This traditional, outdated and piecemeal approach to maintenance is costly, wasteful and extremely inefficient.

“We are therefore surprised that Honourable Jack Bloom is still trapped in this type of approach to infrastructure maintenance… It was also further clarified [in a media briefing held in October last year] that the strategic goal of the proactive approach to maintenance seeks to increase the life-span of the facilities in a fully sustainable, integrated and cost-effective manner.

DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, Jack Bloom, says a management shake-up at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital is needed to ensure a safe and pleasant environment for patients and staff

“It is for this reason that our engineers and artisans are on the ground attending to the current defects affecting the air-conditioners at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital. We, therefore, dismiss with contempt Honourable Bloom’s antics that seek to use the current conditions of our infrastructure, which we are aware of, to profile himself in the media.”

More than 800 baby deaths recorded at Charlotte Maxeke hospital

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