The Eastern Cape Department of Health says it is concerned about the spike in cable theft at its facilities. Recently, criminals stole cables at the Cecilia Makiwane Hospital in Mdantsane and the Dodrecht Hospital.
This led to the hospitals plunging into darkness, affecting the delivery of services. The department has since called for scrap metal dealerships to be more regulated, as the demand for metal continues to grow.
Gcobisa Kapa, who is a patient at Cecilia Makiwane Hospital says they feared for their lives when the power went off from Tuesday to Thursday.
“When the power was out, I wasn’t feeling well. I was scared the whole night. I felt as though I was going to lose my mind. I kept on praying for it to return even now its like it will happen again.”
The Eastern Cape Head in the Heath Department, Dr Rolene Wagner says this has also affected their already over stretched finances.
“People need to understand that such acts of criminality our day to day operations and places our people’s lives at risk. The health resources in our department is scarce. So we need our doctors to provide health and care to our patients. When you have a disaster that happened at CMH suddenly our teams had to switch their attention. We had to divert our patients to surrounding hospitals.”
Concern over cable theft in EC health facilities:
