Despite promises to fix the laundry shortage at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, patients are still suffering as mounds of dirty laundry continue to pile up.
See photos here, here, and here.
When I raised the alarm three weeks ago, the Gauteng Health Department responded: “A team of infrastructure technicians are working with the appointed contractor to restore the laundry service to its full capacity as speedily as possible.”
But operations are being cancelled because of the laundry shortage, the infection risk is increasing, and relatives are bringing clean sheets for patients in the wards.
Broken machines at the hospital’s in-house laundry are to blame, which means dirty sheets must be taken to the provincial Dunswart laundry, which is unable to handle the volume.
Meanwhile, staff criticise the recently appointed hospital CEO Dr Nthabiseng Makgana for her frequent absences and inattention to hospital problems.
According to the Auditor-General, she was appointed irregularly as she has less than 10 years senior management experience, and she does not have the required Masters’ degree qualification.
It is surely not difficult to fix a laundry, and private laundries can be used to assist with this dirty linen crisis.
The DA calls for an urgent leadership change at this hospital, otherwise crises which hurt patients will continue to happen.