Another laundry crisis at Baragwanath Hospital

Patients and staff have yet again been hit by a clean linen shortage at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.

Patients and staff have yet again been hit by a clean linen shortage at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. Image: Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital/ Facebook.

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.

Crisis lasted several weeks

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.

Apply today at candidate-apply.da.org.za and be part of the solution

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.

Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital

The Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is the third largest hospital in the world, occupying around 173 acres (0.70 km2), with approximately 3 200 beds and about 6 760 staff members.

The facilities are housed in 429 buildings with a total surface area of 233 795 m2.

Approximately 70% of all admissions are emergencies, including approximately 160 victims of gunshot wounds per month.

Accident, emergency and ambulance represent the busiest services, counting over 350 daily patients. Every year, about 150 000 inpatient and 500 000 outpatient cases are registered.

The Department of Ophthalmology, the St John Eye Hospital, has 111 beds and counts about 50 000 patients per year.

Approximately 60 000 patients per year are treated in the Maternity Hospital.

The hospital is in the Soweto area of Johannesburg, South Africa. (Soweto was a separate municipality from 1983 to 2002, when it was amalgamated to the City of Johannesburg.)

It is one of the 40 Gauteng provincial hospitals, and is financed and run by the Gauteng Provincial Health Authorities.

It is a teaching hospital for the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School, along with the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, Helen Joseph Hospital and the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital.