Generators at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital failed to operate on 11 January after the hospital was hit by a power cut in the area.
Jack Bloom, Democratic Alliance Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, issued a media statement which said that about 10am the generators did initially kick in, but then they failed across the entire hospital for about two hours.
He further added that the doctors had to perform surgeries using their cellphone lights and manual systems had to be used to assist a number of ICU patients. Lifts were stuck, making it impossible to move patients to and from certain areas. Partial generator power was established later that morning.
DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC Jack Bloom recently issued a media statement after the generators at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital allegedly failed to operate.
The statement read, “I welcome the firing of the in-house engineer at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, but there has to be real accountability for the mass generator failure that occurred there yesterday. I suspect that he is a quick scapegoat for failures at a more senior level.
“There needs to be a public inquiry into the causes of the generator failure which endangered the lives of many patients and severely disrupted the operation of the hospital. I have previously questioned why a fishy company called Opsense Management Consultants was appointed without a tender process in 2011 to service the generators at the hospital. According to official company records, Opsense is a closed corporation with an address in Phokeng in the North West province and was in the process of deregistration.”
Gauteng Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu was previously MEC for Infrastructure Development which, among other things, is responsible for hospital generators, and in this capacity she declared at a press conference in March 2013, “I can now confidently stand before you and say that in the event of a power outage, generators at Chris Hani Baragwanath and the generators at Charlotte Maxeke will power the hospitals.”
Bloom’s statement read, “Mahlangu has repeatedly promised since then that all generators will work, but we have still had many failures, including at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. She is the one who should be fired for incompetence and failed promises.”
