Emergency plans had to be put in place to avoid a major crisis at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital which was without water for nearly two days, last week, due to a bust pipe which resulted in surgeries being postponed and patients being turned away.
Ageing infrastructure coupled with the ongoing water crisis plaguing the Phoenix area meant that alternative arrangements had to made on Wednesday and Thursday for patients to be treated as water tankers were rushed in to deliver to the government hospital. The hospital was hit by a water outage for several hours that had been caused by a burst pipe in the neighbouring community of Calshot Drive, in Clayfield.
Despite the eThekwini Municipality confirming that after the burst pipe was isolated, water supply only resumed just after 11am on Thursday at the busy hospital. The city has been blamed for the deteriorating non-maintained infrastructure.
Ward Councillor Michelle Lutchmen who attended to the crisis call after 10 caesarian surgeries were put on hold due to the water outage said: “I received a call for help in the early hours of Thursday morning and swiftly attended to the call by ensuring that water tankers were expeditiously sent to the hospital.”
She said Mahatma Gandhi Hospital staff and management spoke about the distress that they were facing. “Not only did the water cut affect the hygiene of the facility but several surgeries had to be postponed and some patients were turned away at the gates. I reacted swiftly in order to remedy the situation, because stored water from the hospital jojo tanks had also run dry. We had three water tankers on site filling up the jojo tanks just before 11am on Thursday,” said Cllr Lutchmen.
The Ward 48 councillor said it would have been horrific to face another few hours without water as the hospital depends on this life-giving source, not only for surgeries but for cooking meals for patients, drinking water, ablution facilities, washing of the hospital linen and sterilisation of surgical and other equipment.
“The hospital having to face several hours without water is a direct result of the city’s failure to deal with the ageing infrastructure and poor maintenance. Phoenix has been one of the areas affected severely by the water cuts since the April floods, almost a year ago, but the city has not acted or displayed any sense of urgency in dealing with the issue. Residents have been experiencing water outages for almost a year and to date, nothing has been done to remedy the situation. Now, patients at hospitals are being affected by the continuous water crisis due to collapsing infrastructure which is totally unacceptable.”
Speaking to the Phoenix Tabloid, a patient who did not want to be named said: “I was admitted into the hospital for a head injury and was placed in the male ward. On Wednesday evening around supper time, the nurses brought us food, normally its a proper well balanced meal but that evening I received two slices of peanut butter bread and half a cup of tea. I was unable to eat my supper and I asked for a cup of water but the nurses refused to give me. During visiting hours when my family asked the nurse why I was refused a cup of water, the nurse said we are not allowed to drink water unless they give it to us. We later found out that the hospital was facing a water crisis.”
Pastor Mervyn Reddy, PRO for The Voice of Phoenix which was recently established to address the many service delivery concerns in the township north of Durban, said that he received a call from the CEO of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Hospital on Friday, 17 February, asking for assistance. He said the CEO requested urgent intervention as the hospital was in crisis due to the water supply being shut down for repairs to be done on the main valve and the aqueduct pipe.
“It immediately becomes a crisis when a hospital with hundreds of patients is without sufficient water supply. The functionality of the hospital is limited in that the hygiene standards become affected and may reach a critical state. Patients cannot have their medication without water, ablution facilities cannot be used, the kitchen cannot operate, patients cannot be given a bath, and the total functionality of the hospital, if the issue is not urgently addressed, will become in a critical state of crisis.”
“I immediately contacted the Head of Water and Sanitation, requested for tankers to be sent out as well as contacted sponsors that I knew would assist with bottled drinking water for the patients at the hospital. Sufficient drinking water was donated by Syndicate and the Al-Imdaad Foundation through One Women Pact, which was done through The Voice of Phoenix. I want to place my sincere gratitude to these organisations who did not hesitate to lend a helping hand, because had we not received assistance, and then, patients would have been turned away, this would have hampered the service delivery towards patients. The hospital did experience a crisis where intervention was urgently needed and fortunately we were able to assist and the hospital was able to function accordingly,” said Pastor Reddy.
He further said that the water crisis was not only a hospital issue but affected schools, clinics and every other institution in Phoenix. “Some schools had to close for two days because of the lack of water and the hygiene threat that it posed within the institutions. We understand that eThekwini Municipality is at a stage where they are busy rectifying, repairing and restoring certain infrastructure but we are saying to them prioritise the urgent measures where there would never be a situation where residents of the community, businesses and institutions would be left without water for two days in a row. Contingency plans must be put in place where tankers are readily available to service areas where there is no water supply,” added Reddy.
The eThekwini Municipality’s Head of Communications Lindiwe Khuzwayo said: “The municipality is aware of this matter. There was a burst pipe that occurred on Calshot Drive in Phoenix and it affected water supply to the hospital. Once the burst was isolated, water supply resumed to the hospital around 11.04am. The hospital should have had 24-hours internal storage in terms of the water bylaws to cater for bursts and other water supply interruptions,” Khuzwayo said said.
Comment from the Department of Health was not forthcoming at the time of going to print.
