Although known to hospital staff, this was discovered by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng MPL and shadow MEC, on a recent visit to the hospital’s laundry.
Steve Mabona, spokesperson for the Gauteng Department of Health confirmed that there had been several breakdowns of the bouiler in the past few months impacting the regular supply of linen.
Bloom added that doctors at the hospital complained that surgeries were often cancelled because of the shortage of clean laundry.
Qedani Mahlangu, Gauteng Health MEC confirmed that 355 operations were cancelled at the Charlotte Maxeke hospital last year, mostly because of time constraints, lack of ICU beds, equipment shortages and no clean linen available. According to Bloom, there are three boilers, but one was removed from the laundry and another has been out of order since last year. Bloom added that the laundry was now dependent on one boiler only, which was installed in 1956.
Mabona said, “Currently one boiler is working at the laundry, the boiler is old, and as such it takes time to repair due to scarcity of spares. A contractor who requested to remain anonymous, was appointed to replace the coal boilers with diesel/gas boilers, but unfortunately the contract was terminated due to non-performance.”
Mabona was pleased to announce that a new contractor was appointed and was currently onsite attending to the boilers. As a result, the boilers would be working in due course.
Filler: Do you think that government hospitals are being properly managed? How could the hospital improve clean linen supplies? Tweet us on @RK_Gazette
