Patients and staff have yet again been hit by a clean linen shortage at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
This is because new machinery to fix the hospital’s in-house laundry is still in storage, and the Dunswart provincial laundry cannot provide enough clean linen as their washing machines have broken down.
The hospital is now running out of clean sheets and bed clothes, and non-emergency surgery may also have to be cancelled.
This follows a laundry crisis in November last year that lasted for several weeks.
The Gauteng Health Department claimed that a team of infrastructure technicians was sorting out the problem.
Meanwhile, there are unsanitary piles of dirty linen and the infection risk is increasing.
Relatives are tired of bringing their own linen to assist patients in the wards.
This highlights once again the incompetence of the hospital CEO Dr Nthabiseng Makgana, who is frequently absent.
Providing clean laundry is a basic hospital function that should not be difficult to achieve. If necessary, private laundries can be used instead.
The DA in Gauteng calls for Dr Makgana to be fired as the Auditor General has said she was appointed irregularly last year without the required Masters’ degree and 10 years senior management experience.