The North West Health MEC Madoda Sambatha has acted swiftly to deal with the challenges of water shortages at Joe Morolong Memorial Hospital in Vryburg. Sambatha has already been to the facility where he called a meeting with a team of managers and specialists to assess the extent of the challenges and recommend immediate, short and long term solutions to the challenges.

To that effect, the Department can confirm that Joe Morolong Memorial Hospital as a regional hospital was affected by the water shortage in the region of Vryburg which saw the communities demonstrated against last week.

MEC Sambatha said that the hospital is connected to the municipal line of supply and is therefore also affected when the community is facing water supply interruption.

“I responded quickly to this challenge because I know that water is essential to health care. There is a need to solve this challenge, knowing that, interrupted water supply to the hospital has dire impact on the quality of healthcare delivery and overall hygiene”, said MEC Sambatha.

He also said that he is pleased of the fact that, as at this point, water has been restored back although major work of installing the additional water storage systems are continuing as part of the Department of Health mitigation plan. The reservoir at the facility has been filled and connection changed to allow 70% flow to wards and 30% to hydrants.

The department together with the management of the hospital has implemented immediate actions to mitigate against the future shortage of water in the facility and the following intervention plan has been put in motion.

There is an ongoing process to install the 6 additional Jojo tanks and a replacement of 1 industrial pump and a valve controlling water supply to the hospital wards and to the fire hydrants.

As a long term plan to ensure permanent supply of water, the Department got approval to continue and finalise connection of the borehole to the hospital and the Bill of Quantity (BOQ) is complete and the Supply Chain Management process has been initiated. Parallel to that, necessary permissions are being sort from local municipality and SANRAL for servitudes to connect borehole to the hospital.

Source: Government of South Africa