In what is becoming something of a regular occurrence for Gauteng hospitals, another fire has broken at beleaguered Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital on Tuesday night. Fortunately, the fire was contained to a currently unused parking area in a damaged section of the hospital. The situation was deemed not to be serious enough to warrant a patient evacuation.
A fire in April 2021 caused the closure of seven wards, with some 200 beds. Reopening had long been delayed, and there have been complaints of thefts of equipment and construction material. Alleged corruption has continued to dog the full reopening of the 1088-bed academic hospital, overloading other hospitals and also impacting the training of student doctors.
An investigation by Spotlight revealed a number of factors for the 2021 fire including ageing infrastructure, essential equipment such as fire doors not working, low water pressure and incompatible fire hydrants (due to theft), a lack of evacuation plans and a fire service that was woefully underequipped.
Gauteng department of health spokesperson Motalatale Modiba gave a report on the latest fire: “Late on Tuesday night, security personnel reported that there was smoke that seemed to be coming from one of the structures. Firefighters for the City of Joburg immediately responded to the situation and managed to contain the fire which was confined to a small section of the level two parking.”
“The level two parking is one of the areas that was affected by the April 2021 fire and is currently under props and not accessible to the public or staff except for construction people,” Modiba said.
“Upon assessment of the situation clinicians on site together with the facility’s head of disaster made a call that the situation did not warrant for patients to be evacuated as the smoke from the fire was not too thick or high risk for inhalation.”
This comes after two fires broke out within weeks of one another at Steve Biko Academic Hospital.
