Johannesburg – Chaos ensued at the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital on Tuesday after thugs vandalised and stole electricity cables, causing the disruption of services and plunging the Mdantsane hospital into darkness.
Eastern Cape Health Department spokesperson Yonela Dekeda said: “The cables that supply power to the hospital were badly vandalised, with other cables stolen. Although the generators on site are functional, the missing cables meant that the electricity generated by the generators could not be conducted to the various parts of the hospital.”
A preliminary report indicated that the perpetrators dug a hole underneath the fence to gain entry to the facility.
“Mobile generators had to be deployed to the facility to operate critical areas – areas like the adult and paediatric ICUs and the kitchen so that patients could have warm food.”
Owing to the urgency of the matter, a contractor was appointed immediately to conduct a complete assessment and to repair and replace the damaged and stolen cables, said Dekeda.
“The contractors worked through the night until the power was restored.”
As an interim measure, the department made the following interventions:
● Patients at the outpatient department were diverted to Frere Hospital;
● Two clinical managers from Cecilia Makiwane Hospital were allocated to work at Frere Hospital’s casualty department to assist with the workload;
● Fifteen corpses were moved to Mdantsane forensic for safe storage; and
● All Caesarean sections were moved to Frere Hospital.
Health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth, who embarked on an oversight visit to the hospital on Thursday afternoon, condemned the cable theft.
“We need our communities to take ownership of government properties because it will be them who will suffer when services are disrupted. The people who stole the cables live among us in our communities.
“We are calling on community forums, communities and everyone to work together to ensure that such criminal elements are rooted out by exposing the thugs behind such criminality.”
“We are fortunate that this time there were no lives lost as a result of this thuggery because we moved with speed to ensure that a contractor was appointed to fix the cables while critical patients were moved to other hospitals.
“We thank the CEO and his team for working until midnight and early this (Thursday) morning,” said Meth. .
The MEC expressed appreciation to the Buffalo City deputy executive mayor, Councillor Princess Faku, who also provided support and assistance by clearing the hospital grounds.
The MEC called on the police to leave no stone unturned in their investigation.
“The vandalism and stealing of the cables caused major delays and interruptions as some surgeries could not be performed and medication dispensed to patients as these required an ongoing electricity supply.”
“In this particular instance, we can fortunately report that there have been no adverse events reported.” said Dekeda.
Normal operations at the facility are expected to resume on Friday.
IOL