Cape hospital without water

160204. Cape TOwn. Fire and Rescue transporting water to Tygerberg hospital. Tygerberg Hospital in Bellville had a burst water main and the water to the hospital had to be stopped. The City's Fire and Rescue services was called in to supply the hospital with water. Picture Henk Kruger/Cape Argus

160204. Cape TOwn. Fire and Rescue transporting water to Tygerberg hospital. Tygerberg Hospital in Bellville had a burst water main and the water to the hospital had to be stopped. The City's Fire and Rescue services was called in to supply the hospital with water. Picture Henk Kruger/Cape Argus

Published Feb 5, 2016

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Cape Town - Tygerberg Hospital had to postpone surgery procedures and send patients home after operations were plunged into disarray as the hospital was left without water for a second consecutive day on Thursday.

At least one doctor claimed the lack of water posed a serious risk to infection prevention.

The biggest hospital in the province was left without water when a water main burst on Wednesday morning.

On Thursday, scores of hospital staff, including UWC students who live on Tygerberg campus, could be seen milling around the hospital with buckets of water supplied by the city council via tankers.

In the morning, staff had to mop up the hospital’s extensive corridors following flooding on various floors, which left at least one operating theatre, some lifts and the pharmacy swamped.

Lifts on the 4th and 5th floors as well as toilets were out of order following flooding in the early hours of Thursday.

Darren Francis, the spokesman for the provincial Department of Health, confirmed the hospital had been experiencing significant water shortages due to the burst water main. “Technicians are currently on site attending to the problem.

“Tygerberg Hospital management has put emergency plans in place and is replenishing the hospital’s water storage tanks in an attempt to ensure water supply in critical areas.

“The situation is being closely monitored to ensure the safety of patients and staff,” he said.

Francis confirmed that new emergency cases were being referred to Groote Schuur and Karl Bremer hospitals to ease the pressure on Tygerberg’s theatres, which were mainly inoperative following the crisis.

When the Cape Argus visited the hospital on Thursday, only three out of 15 theatres were operational, performing emergency surgeries only.

Francis said over the past two days the hospital ran only emergency theatres, which covered obstetric emergencies such as emergency Caesarean sections, trauma and general surgical emergencies.

“Emergency cases that would normally have been brought to Tygerberg by EMS have been diverted to other facilities,” he said.

A doctor who didn’t want to be named said at least 16 C-sections that were scheduled to be performed on Wednesday had to be postponed.

“It’s a crisis. Patients who had come for elective surgeries were either sent back home, asked to prolong their hospital stay or transferred to other hospitals. I understand that some doctors had to go home as there was nothing for them to do at the hospital,” he said.

Doctors who worked at that hospital’s paediatric unit said the lack of running water posed a major threat to infection control measures.

“For now we are still okay as far as infection control is concerned because we have enough disinfectants such as alcohol sprays to wash hands.

“But it’s already negatively affecting the smooth running of the hospital.

“In our ward, children have no water to bath or mix their formula milk with.

“We have to get water from outside using buckets. We are not sure how clean the water is that is in buckets, given the risk of cross contamination in a hospital environment.

“We all hope they can fix things quickly before the situation becomes worse,” he said.

Patrick Louw of Paarl, who had cataract surgery on Monday, said he had been asked to prolong his stay at the hospital as he needed a second operation.

“I was supposed to have a follow-up operation today on Thursday to correct the position of the new lens in my eye, but I can’t go to theatre. Doctors said I will just have to hang around until the water problem is sorted out,” he said.

Louw said he was lucky to have bathed as many patients couldn’t due to water shortage: “Luckily I got up early… at around 4am. There was still a bit of water in the taps then, but after 6am the taps had gone dry again so some ended up not bathing. Many people are upset that they can’t bath, but what can they do? We are all crossing fingers that it will be sorted out soon,” he said.

Francis said technicians had since shut down the water supply to repair the line: “During this period water will be available via the water tanks to patients and staff as well as to selected toilets; portable toilets and janitor services have been hired,” he said.

Francis said a trauma medical officer had since been redeployed to Karl Bremer as well as some nursing and theatre staff to help with increased patient loads there.

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Cape Argus

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