Road to Bethal Hospital is almost inaccessible
Govan Mbeki Municipality's spokesman said the Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport has an intervention programme to resurface Glencoe Street intersection with the N17, passing Bethal Hospital to a T-junction with Simon Street.
The road to the Bethal Provincial Hospital can only be described as great terrain for bundu bashing or off-roading.
Keeping a transported patient as stable as possible in an ambulance is almost impossible for paramedics when having to dodge potholes and divert into the opposite lane to get patients to the hospital.
Clerq Street has turned into a gravel road, with a few patches of tar indicating it used to be a tarred road.
Ambulances need to respond to scenes of life and death situations. In many cases, time is of the essence when emergency services need to get severely injured or ill patients medical care as fast as possible.
Most streets of Bethal, especially the access road to the hospital, offer not such luxury of a speedy response.
These are not only challenges paramedics face, let alone the public who access the hospital. When driving through Bethal town, not one street is free from potholes.
The Ridge Times reached out to GMM’s acting head of communications, Donald Green, with the following questions:
• What does GMM have to say about the road in front of the hospital?
• When is GMM going to fix this road?
• Is there a budget to have this road fixed?
• What does GMM have to say about the rest of the dilapidating roads within Bethal?
In response Green said the Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport has an intervention programme to resurface Glencoe Street intersection with the N17, passing Bethal Hospital to a T-junction with Simon Street.
“A specific date will be communicated,” said Green.
At the time of going to print the Ridge Times came to learn that repair work on the road at the hospital was done.
