Lives were potentially put at risk early on Thursday when the generator for emergency operating theatres at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital was out of action for four and a half hours‚ the Democratic Alliance claimed.

According to the party’s shadow health MEC‚ Jack Bloom: “Electricity was cut to the hospital for unexplained reasons at 3am‚ and the generators all kicked in‚ but‚ at 3.30am‚ the generator for emergency theatres failed and only came back at 8am.”

While emergency patients were moved to other theatres‚ said Bloom‚ “this latest incident raises questions about proper maintenance of generators that have failed on previous occasions”.

“There is a disturbing history of failed promises to ensure that Bara hospital has a reliable electricity supply‚” he said.

Earlier this month‚ Bloom said backlogs at Bara – at the time‚ almost 5000 patients were waiting for surgery — had been worsened by frequent equipment failures and electricity power cuts.

“Hospital management also needs to be improved‚ and given control over equipment maintenance which is presently done by the dysfunctional Infrastructure Development Department‚” said Bloom.

RDM News Wire approached Gauteng Department of Health spokesman Chris Maxon about the issue. He said he would have to confer with the Infrastructure Development Department before issuing a comment.

This had not been received at the time of publication.