Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital promises 300 parking bays before the end of the month
DA Gauteng Shadow Health Minister, Jack Bloom says hundreds of staff and patients are frustrated every day as they hunt for parking and walk long distances to get to Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital.
Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital blames the Department of Infrastructure Development for the slow progress made in providing parking to replace what was destroyed in last year’s fire.
DA’s Gauteng Shadow Health MEC Jack Bloom said in a statement that the hospital had a shortage of 1 000 parking bays.
“According to a written reply by Gauteng Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature, the hospital had 1 700 on-site parking bays, but only currently has 229 bays in the hospital and 400 nearby. This means there are 1 071 fewer parking bays than previously.”
Bloom added that he proposed that the hospital use the parking at the province-owned Emoyeni Conference Centre which was opposite the hospital, but Nkomo-Ralehoko said the hospital requested parking at Emoyeni from the Department of Infrastructure Development (DID) in October 2021 and was informed the parking bays were not accessible as it was privately leased.
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Charlotte Maxeke’s communication and public relations manager, Tabudi Madisha disagreed with the DA’s Gauteng Shadow Health MEC.
“We have about 720 parking spaces available for our staff to use. These include 140 parking bays at the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital, 120 at the College, 195 at our residence, 36 at our administration block, and 229 at our parking bay 2. We are also expecting 300 parking bays at parking bay 3 for our staff to use before the end of this month.”
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Madisha added that the hospital was reliant on the DID to ensure that staff and patients have parking in the hospital. However, this did not happen on time and the transfer of the remedial work to the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) through the premier proclamation further delayed the project.
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