Apathy, lack of empathy and “sabotage” lie behind the failure of Gauteng Health to bring the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, closed since April 2021 following a mysterious fire, Professor Adam Mahomed, head of department of internal medicine at the hospital, told 702 Radio.
Mahomed said that neither a study into the structural integrity of the damaged wards, nor a forensic report into the causes of the fire, had been shared with clinicians or the public, and said that it was likely that the hospital was being sabotaged. “People play politics with other people’s lives. Our efficiencies and productivity are limited.”
He pointed out that R40m of PPE equipment had been destroyed in the fire, a suspicious pattern that occurred elsewhere in Gauteng at the time. It was his view that the fire was “foul play related to the provision of substandard PPE equipment”.
Mahomed, who was was peaking to Aubrey Masango on the Clement Manyathela Show, said said that “the repairs have been delayed because the people in power have medical aids and don’t need the services of that hospital”.
The response to the fire was characterised by apathy, said Mahomed. “People in power have medical aids and it hasn’t affected them, so they can be blase about getting things done and fixing this hospital. There is a lack of understanding of the vulnerability of patients in this country.”
Mahomed said that staff suspended for disciplinary hearings related to the fire had continued to participate in staff forums from April to December last year. “I think that was an intentional part of scuppering what we were doing to fix things,” he said.
The hospital, the second largest tertiary hospital in the southern hemisphere, was hit by fire, flooding, water outages and a litany of other problems in 2021. Although the hospital partially opened in June last year, repairs have still not been completed. There are no beds for new admissions, oncology patients are moved at risk of infection and are receiving suboptimal care, and patient overflows are sent out to overburdened neighbouring facilities.
More than 2,000 cancer patients are on a waiting list for radiation at the hospital’s oncology unit, said Salome Meyer from Cancer Alliance.
“Radiation is a treatment that could be life-saving but if you have been on a waiting list for more than two years then your chances of survival are very slim,” she told 702.
“We are running around like headless chickens. Nothing is getting fixed properly and the only successes have been when Solidarity or Gift of the Givers have come in and taken over,” said a doctor who has worked at the hospital since 1997. “The government should be embarrassed that an NGO had to come and dig a borehole to supply a public hospital with water,” he added. “The place is falling apart around us.”
In December, the Gauteng infrastructure and development department had said the hospital would open blocks one to five, block by block, starting in May 2022, and ending in June 2024.
Charlotte Maxeke Hospital still ‘a death trap’ for staff and patients
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