BOILER BREAKS AGAIN AT HELEN JOSEPH HOSPITAL

Meals are being delayed at the Helen Joseph Hospital in west Johannesburg as the boiler has broken down for the third time this year. The hospital kitchen cannot cook porridge, pap or rice without steam from the boiler.

There was distress this morning because breakfast was served late as there was no porridge and a special delivery of bread had to be made.

My information is that the boiler broke on Thursday night and that surgical instruments had to be sterilized at the nearby Rahima Moosa Hospital otherwise operations would have been cancelled.

I spoke to Hospital CEO Mrs Gladys Bogoshi who told me that technicians were trying to fix the boiler. It's yet another example of the maintenance crisis in Gauteng hospitals due to poor management.

Last weekend patients in a ward at the Yusuf Dadoo Hospital shivered because there was no electricity and candles were used at night. The scandal is that Gauteng did not spend all its maintenance budget last year.

This is why Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has cut R72.6 million from this year's Hospital Revitalisation Grant for Gauteng. We need proper management, as in the Western Cape which was the only province to spend its full maintenance grant last year and escape Gordhan's cuts this year.

Statement issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Health Spokesman, May 7 2011

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