LISTEN | Doctor says water outages impact ‘sanitation, health and dignity’

Water outages in Johannesburg have severely affected its residents, with the city facing stage 2 restrictions as reservoir storage remains strained.

Public hospitals are among those affected by the outages as they battle low pressure due to constraints in Johannesburg Water’s network.

A doctor from Helen Joseph Hospital spoke to TimesLIVE about the impact of the outages on the hospital’s ability to provide healthcare. According to the doctor, the major issues are sanitation and infection control, which have greatly impacted patients and hospital personnel.

The doctor says “sanitation facilities are dreadful”, as they have faced ongoing water outages since late September.

LISTEN HERE: 

According to the doctors, they are unable to maintain basic sanitation conditions as they can maintain a “minimal” sterile environment. This has impacted the provision of healthcare and has resulted, among other things, in hospital staff being unable to wash their hands, clean medical bowls or even wash bloody stretchers.

“This is going to result in a lack of infection control and increased chances of disease,” she says. 

Although there are alternative water supply measures in place, including tankers that come to refill their storage tanks, these don't come on a routine basis and are insufficient, according to the doctor. 

On Wednesday Johannesburg Water provided an update on the city’s water infrastructure, saying several reservoirs and towers remain constrained, with minimal recovery and improvements in a few systems.

TimesLIVE