Johannesburg - Patients who have been waiting for six months and more were due to be disappointed when they arrived at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital for MRI or X-ray scans on Tuesday morning.
On Monday, doctors had to write their patient reports by cellphone light as the hospital was plunged into darkness and all surgeries had to be suspended as the hospital lost its power supply.
An insider at the hospital, who asked not to be named, said on Tuesday: “Historically, every Wednesday, maintenance technicians do tests on the generators so when we come in at about 6.30am until about 7.30am the lights would be off, then switched on again. But, for about four or five months, it hasn’t happened. Then we had this big crash.”
Gauteng Health Department spokesman, Steve Mabona confirmed the outage on Monday, saying it was as a result of the lack of power from City Power, when one compressor linked to a support generator did not have enough pressure to kick-start the generators.
“Technicians fixed the pressure challenge and all the generators kicked-started. But one area had no power supply,” he explained.
The hospital had to transfer seven neonatal babies to the private sector and some maternity patients were transferred to Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital.
One trauma patient was transferred to the Far East Hospital.
“We have three CT scans, only one is working. The MRI machine is not working. Patients have to wait on average six months to get the scan, so you can imagine the patients whose return dates were today, will have to be turned away,” the insider added.
Health MEC Qedani Mahlangu has reportedly fired the hospital’s in-house engineer over the incident.
Mahlangu was back at the hospital for a second consecutive day. She said it had been a race for time as they transferred all the patients to neighbouring hospitals.
She didn’t know how long the power disruption would last, but added that the department had bought 30 000 litres of diesel to keep the generators going.
Another challenge had been food because the kitchen is far from where the generators are. To guard against food poisoning, the hospital had been forced to buy food from a private company to feed patients.
Only emergency operations were being conducted at the hospital on Tuesday morning. The renal unit was also fully functional and there were lights on at the hospital.
DA MPL Jack Bloom said he suspected the engineer had been made the scapegoat for failures at a more senior level.
“There needs to be a public inquiry into the causes of the generator failure which endangered the lives of many patients and severely disrupted the operation of the hospital. I have previously questioned why a fishy company called Opsense Management Consultants was appointed without a tender process in 2011 to service the generators at the hospital,” he said.
“According to official company records, Opsense is a closed corporation with an address in Phokeng in North West and was in the process of deregistration,” Bloom added.
He said Mahlangu had repeatedly promised since then that all generators will work, “but we have still had many failures, including at Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital.
“The MEC is the one who should be fired for incompetence and failed promises.”
Technicians said on Monday that low air pressure in one of the generators meant that the cooling systems had failed, causing each generator to automatically shut down.
On Monday signs stuck on the lifts warned staff and patients to use the stairs instead. The normally packed casualty section was deserted except for a few patients.
One man, Hennie de Necker, said he had taken his 71-year-old mother to the hospital for a CT scan when everything was plunged into darkness. They had to reschedule it.
City Power spokeswoman Yumna Sheik said the outage which affected the Parktown area was caused by a fire at the Ridge substation.
The cause of the fire was being investigated.
The Star