Patients suffer as taps at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital runs dry

17 September 2024

Patients are suffering as the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital has run out of water due to interrupted supply from the Parktown 2 Reservoir.

Non-emergency surgery has been cancelled, and there is a hygiene crisis in the hospital as cleaning cannot be done and toilets do not work.

New patients are not being admitted as the hospital has been placed on the divert list, which puts extra strain on other hospitals.

This disaster has happened even though the hospital has storage tanks for 7 million litres of water, which should suffice for several days as it is well above the required minimum storage of 500 litres per bed, amounting to 540 000 litres for its 1080 beds.

We need to know whether all the storage tanks were full this weekend when the water supply started to fail.

The Johannesburg Council has also been slow to deliver water tankers to the hospital.

Johannesburg's water woes are predicted to get worse, so urgent water security measures are needed at all our hospitals, including boreholes and increased storage capacity.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 17 September 2024