Apartheid to Blame: Charlotte Maxeke Hospital to Have New Plans Drawn Up by Engineers
- Acting Minister of Health Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane has said the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital in Johannesburg will get new building plans
- This is after a fire ravaged the hospital building in April this year resulting in Gauteng Premier David Makhura shutting the hospital down indefinitely
- Kubayi-Ngubane has now declared that engineers are working on new plans which should see the hospital slowly reopening in due course
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Apartheid is to blame for the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital's (CMJAH) building plans going missing, according to Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane.
Kubayi-Ngubane confirmed during an interview on Monday, 21 June, that new building plans were being drawn up by engineers for the hospital. This is following a fire that ravaged the public health facility's building on 16 April.
Source: Getty Images
The minister blamed the country's apartheid regime for the difficulty in getting the facility up and running, claiming that the plans never existed as a result of the then-regulations, which allowed certain key points not to register plans with municipalities.
An additional spanner in the works which has seen the apparent problem exacerbated, according to Kubayi-Ngubane, is the lack of proactive action taken to correct the narrative once democracy was attained.
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Structural engineers making headway on plans
Despite this, it is hoped that the oncology ward would resume as normal in the coming days as engineers work speedily to draw up new designs.
"Gauteng has informed me that they've gotten the engineers, that they're using 3D to be able to take the pictures, in terms of the building plans. That is almost done," said Kubayi Ngubane.
Per an EWN report, several other stumble blocks have been noted, which may delay the hospital's reopening.
"We are doing the fire escape so that we can be able to get that. The door is the only challenge that we are trying to solve. The Solidarity Fund has come on board to assist us around securing this, asking manufacturers to contract. Apparently, the doors are not currently in existence, so we need to start them from scratch."
Fire ravages Charlotte Maxeke Hospital building
A fire ripped through the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital on Friday, 16 April, and as a result, patients were evacuated. David Makhura, Premier of Gauteng, declared after that the hospital would shut down.
Briefly News reported at the time that about 400 patients were evacuated following the blaze while 270 patients remained in the hospital awaiting their evacuation. The patients have been distributed to other hospitals throughout South Africa according to IOL.
Parts of the third-floor parking collapsed due to the raging inferno and firefighters battled to get the blaze under control. The cause for the fire was not known then. During the chaos, criminal elements took advantage of the situation and the police reported that at least two cars were stolen.
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Source: Briefly News
