Joburg – The DA in Gauteng says cold weather has forced the cancellation of surgery at the Charlotte Maxeke Hospital for the last three days as the heating system has failed.
Jack Bloom, DA spokesperson for health, said temperatures in the operating theatres were as low as 8ºC, but the temperature needs to be set at about 18ºC for safety reasons.
“More than 50 elective cases have been cancelled so far, but emergency surgery is continuing in suboptimal conditions. This latest disruption to surgery follows 2 218 operations that were cancelled for various reasons at the hospital from January 2022 to May this year.
“It is disappointing that lack of maintenance and equipment failure causes suffering to patients who can't wait more than a year for many operations,” Bloom said.
He said earlier this week a number of wards at the hospital were flooded and some patients had to be evacuated, saying professional management was needed to fix this hospital’s infrastructure instead of the perpetual bungling and corruption in the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development.