Gallo Images/Daily Sun/Lucky Morajane
Anxious and unsettled, a Johannesburg teenager is fraught with worry as a surgery to remove a mass between his ear and brain has been postponed indefinitely.
The 19-year-old was admitted to Helen Joseph Hospital on Sunday. His surgical procedure had been scheduled for Monday May 24. However, hours after being taken to theatre, the videography student was sent home, in the dark about when he’d have the critical surgery.
Speaking to City Press, his mother Fatima Myburgh says: “They [hospital staff] said the surgeries have been cancelled due to the theatre backlog as a result of the water outages.”
Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH) is one of the biggest hospitals in the Southern hemisphere. It was closed in April after a fire that originated in an underground parking area caused a section of the hospital to collapse, rendering the entire facility unsafe.
A collapsed floor and roof after the fire at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital in Johannesburg. No attempts have started to repair the damage. (Photo: Mark Heywood)
Since then patients and staff have been relocated to other hospitals in the province at considerable cost to the already overburdened health network.
The Gauteng health department (GHD) and the Gauteng department of infrastructure development (GDID) insist they are acting as swiftly as possible to reopen the hospital.