Ward 8 Councillor Brian Jackson personally visited Temba TB hospital, in Fingo Village, to reassure staff and patients that officials were working to bring back water to the hospital.
Ward 8 Councillor Brian Jackson personally visited Temba TB hospital, in Fingo Village, to reassure staff and patients that officials were working to bring back water to the hospital.
His visit on Thursday followed the hospital management's urgent call for action to stall the spread of infection.
“We are dealing with lives. The staff need water to provide their services,” chairperson of Temba hospital board, Xolani Simakuhle, told Grocott's Mail last week as water outages threw the city into crisis.
“We need water for laundry, cooking, drinking and cleaning – and to water our vegetable garden at the hospital.”
The hospital was one of the stakeholders represented at a crisis meeting at the City Hall on Wednesday.
Others involved in formulating a plan to address the outages, which by then had entered their fourth day, were Rhodes University, the Army Base, Correctional Services and the SAPS.
Both Temba and the Day Hospital had experienced intermittent water outages.
The supply to Settlers' Hospital had also been intermittent, but a staff member told the paper that the hospital had been able to implement a contingency plan and continue running.
At Wednesday's stakeholders’ meeting, Temba CEO Nelisa Dyantyi warned of a growing health risk. “The impact will be the spread of infections,” she said.
The municipality promised to deliver water to the hospitals by Thursday.
By Thursday afternoon the supply had been restored to Temba.
A doctor from a Nelspruit, who declined to be named because of contractual obligations, explained that water is essential for any hospital.
“You need it to wash hands in-between patients, to scrub for theatre. It is especially important in the paediatrics and post-natal care units,” he said in a telephone interview.
