Vaal residents at risk because of Covid bed delays

14 May 2021

The Vaal area is currently experiencing a surge in Covid-19 infections, but the 300 extra beds at the Kopanong Hospital in Vereeniging will not be completed until September this year.

This was revealed yesterday at a meeting of the Gauteng Legislature Health Committee.

Building of the new wards started on 29 June last year, and they were supposed to have been ready by November, but work stoppages and contractual disputes have led to delays.

The contract has now been re-advertised, and work on the wards is only expected to resume next month.

This is yet another failure by the provincial government, which has a poor record in choosing lousy building companies who miss deadlines and waste money. Corruption is often a factor in this continuing failure to choose contractors who can do the job.

Another building fiasco is the R500 million spend on ICU beds at Anglo-Ashanti Hospital in the Far West Rand, which will now only be used for quarantine and isolation of Covid-19 patients, instead of treatment for serious cases.

Meanwhile, people in the Vaal area continue to suffer from a shortage of hospital beds which could cause lives to be lost in a third wave of the Covid-19 epidemic.

It’s a crying shame that badly-needed health projects are never built on time or within budget.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health, 14 May 2021