DA pleads with Gauteng Health to prioritise hospital infrastructure

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng has urged the Provincial Health Department to prioritise hospital infrastructure development, following a water crisis that plagued the Helen Joseph Hospital since last week.

The DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, Jack Bloom says, ” It is very terrible, it is inhumane and the first priority of a hospital is basic hygiene and for that you need water. What I would really like to point out is the Gauteng Health Department failed to spend 2.7 billion rand of its budget in the last financial year, and 550 million rand of that was specifically for hospital infrastructure.”

“Now, there have been problems at the Helen Joseph Hospital for years and I think that hospital should have been high on the priority list. The problems at that hospital should have been foreseen long ago and fixed up with the available money. The money is there, they just don’t spend it,” Bloom adds.