VEREENIGING- A Kopanong Hospital elevator recently got stuck, allegedly for two hours, with patient visitors and a staff member inside.
It is said that the elevator jammed on the ground floor when it was supposed to take family members to the floors where they were supposed to see their loved ones.
Apparently, there was no ventilation in the elevator for the time it was stuck, and those inside had to compromise to ‘make air’, while some people even had panic attacks. Those stuck in the elevator allegedly had to wait from 14:30 to 16:44 for a standby mechanic, who was said to be coming from Pretoria, to fix the lift.
This, Ster North is told, is an occurrence that has become a norm at the hospital (for the elevator/s to jam from time to time).
“Calls were made to family members, and we also had to personally call the elevator company, which said that their standby guy would travel from Pretoria to come and help. We are lucky that something bad did not happen to us while we were trapped inside, otherwise you would be writing a different story,” said a source who was inside the stuck elevator.
“What we want is answers; what happened? Why did it happen? Why has the hospital been left in such a state of neglect? Why did we have to wait for a technician from Pretoria to come and help us? Are there no people around here who can do the job?”
An employee at the hospital confirmed the regular jamming of the elevator/s.
“This is nothing new, it happens all the time. There are worse things you can report about, we are used to that,” she said.
Ster North has sent an enquiry to the Gauteng Department of Health.