Broken boiler hits linen supplies to Joburg hospital

22 June 2015

The supply of clean linen to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital has been disrupted several times this year by an old and unreliable boiler at the hospital's laundry.

I discovered this this morning when I visited the laundry which is situated by the old Children's Hospital in Hillbrow.

There used to be three boilers, but one has been removed, another is out of commission since last year, and the laundry is dependent for steam on one boiler only, which was built in 1956.

This boiler breaks down frequently, sometimes for a week or more, which disrupts clean linen supplies not only to Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, but also to the Helen Joseph, Discoverers and Yusuf Dadoo Hospitals, and the Hillbrow Clinic.

Last week on Friday, the boiler broke down again, and was only repaired on Saturday.

Doctors at Charlotte Maxeke complain that surgery is often cancelled because of a shortage of clean laundry.

A new gas boiler will only be installed sometime next year, so laundry problems will continue.

The hospital is also at fault because they should have a reserve supply of clean laundry but this does not appear to be the case.

Staff say that new laundry comes in and then disappears.

Gauteng has five state laundries, all of which operate inefficiently and have a cost structure higher than that of private laundries.

Hospital CEOs should have the authority to use private laundries to ensure that clean linen is always available, rather than the shortages that are frequently experienced because of inefficient state laundries.

Statemetn issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, June 22 2015