JOBURG HOSPITAL LIFTS STILL BROKEN

Just what does it take to do a relatively simple thing like fix the lifts at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital?

I visited there yesterday and found that lifts at two of the five blocks at the hospital are still broken despite endless promises they would be replaced.

This affects pregnant women and children as the maternity and children's wards are located in these blocks.

All four lifts at Block 2 are broken, and another three lifts at Block 1, where the goods lift can still be used.

Staff at the maternity ward told me how they had wheel patients through other blocks in order to get to a working lift to take them to a ward on another floor. This could take as long as 40 minutes.

I first raised the alarm about these broken lifts in November 2010. A year later, Infrastructure Development MEC Bheki Nkosi visited the hospital and promised that all the lifts would be maintained in working order.

It is an utter disgrace that patients and staff still suffer from broken lifts at this flagship hospital.

I challenge MEC Nkosi to visit the hospital again and give a firm deadline in the very near future for all the lifts to work.

Statement issued by Jack Bloom MPL, DA Gauteng Health Spokesman, June 25 2012

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