The laundry at Rob Ferreira Hospital is not ready as promised by the Department of Health. The department had said it will be complete by the end of March.

The area earmarked for the new laundry is located on the lower ground floor of the nurses’ quarters at the hospital and, according to the department spokesman Dumisani Malamule, the contractors are still working on the plumbing.

He said the contractor renovating the area for the laundry will start with work on April 26.

In 2017 they said the reason for the delay was related to the service providers and later they said they had appointed one.

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Various concerns have been raised by patients and the community. They sometimes allegedly have to cancel surgeries due to insufficient linen, and some patients have raised concerns about theirs not being changed. The Department of Health denied these allegations.

“The contractor that was busy with plumbing in the building rediverted the water and after that the company that was supposed to start with the renovations in the laundry room came in, but they had to stop working because water was leaking.

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“They now have to wait for the other contractor to fix the mess then they will all start after that. They will need about two months to do the work. We cannot allow them to continue if substandard work was done,” he said.

Malamule promised again that the laundry will be done after the mess has been fixed.

Lowvelder asked Malamule to provide the name of the contractor who did this substandard work. He said he wanted to find out if it was allowed to reveal his name. By the time of going to press he had not responded.