IT'S alleged that dialysis patients at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital suffer the most.
This is caused by hospital's lack of water supply, which means that the lives of patients with kidney problems are at risk.
According to available information, patients' dialysis time is reduced because there's no water in most of the wards in block 5 of the hospital.
It's also alleged that some patients are receiving only 38 minutes of dialysis instead of the required three hours, while another patient was reportedly treated for three hours instead of four.
When Daily Sun checked with the Gauteng Department of Health, department spokesman Motalatale Modiba confirmed that only one block was affected.
He said there had been a problem with the drive pump, that the unit had been using portable renal osmosis to ensure that dialysis slots continued to run as normal and that the matter would be resolved on 11 December 2023.
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"Patients were not affected. The dialysis time is usually three to four hours. If a patient is late for their appointment, they will be dialysed for a shorter period so as not to affect the next patients coming in for the next session," he said.
He said that water supply is rarely a problem.
"In the event of water outages, the department liaises with other stakeholders such as DID and Joburg Water to ensure that service delivery is not seriously affected," he said.
Meanwhile, the hospital was spared power cuts on 30 November because it owed more than R40 million.
City Power spokesman Isaac Mangena said City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava stopped technicians from disconnecting power to several hospitals, including Charlotte Maxeke, so that the city and provincial governments could come to terms on the issue of payments.
"The company was supposed to disconnect power to Charlotte Maxeke Hospital today over debts totalling R40 million," he said.
