MEC for health and wellness gives an update on remedial work at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital

The public has been assured that all areas of Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital will be available by December 2023.

The Gauteng Department of Health and Wellness MEC, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko gave the assurance this week when replying to legislature questions on when repair work at the hospital in Parktown will be completed following last year’s fire incident.

“The repairs to the fire-damaged area of Block 4 and 5 are currently under way with various work packages being executed. There are also smaller work packages such as repairs to columns and beams and construction of shear walls for structural stability,” stated MEC Nkomo-Ralehoko. She further added that the work to build a temporary access ramp to level P3 to free up about 300 parking bays will be completed during the month of November this year.

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The MEC indicated that the fire compliance work in Block 1to 5 and the administration block, related to the non-compliance findings by the City of Johannesburg, will continue and this is expected to be completed by early 2026 given the volume of work that needs to be done. The project managers are in continuous engagements with the city as a critical stakeholder to ensure that any issue raised by the municipality is attended to.

Initially the approach was to do multiple blocks at the same time, however, the decanting strategy adopted by the clinicians at the hospital means that the decanting will happen on a block-by-block basis with compliance work estimated to be between six to eight months per block.

MEC Nkomo-Ralehoko confirmed that the delays in expediting the remedial work was due to a number of factors which included the transferring of the project between the provincial departments, budgetary constraints and delayed payment of project service providers.

On conclusion of the remedial work package in Block 4 and 5, the hospital will be fully operational, and all clinical spaces will be available for use. Meanwhile all specialities are now present at the hospital after the facility opened early this month (October 3) brought back both the male and female refurbished psychiatric wards with a joint capacity of 44 beds. This has allowed patients that were housed at the Helen Joseph Hospital following the fire incident to return to Charlotte.

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The Charlotte Maxeke Hospital is currently operating 979 inpatients beds which is 92% capacity compared to the pre-fire status. For outpatients, the hospital is at 75% compared to pre-fire capacity (55 000) outpatients a month. This is while 20–25% of the hospital has been handed over for infrastructure works.

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