Faizel Patel – 01/06/2021
NGO Gift of the Givers says its drilling teams will be drilling for water at the Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Johannesburg following water disruptions at the facility and surrounding areas.
On Monday, the Gauteng Health Department raised concerns about the water outages and the impact on service provision at its healthcare facilities.
Rahima Moosa Hospital’s CEO during a media interview on Monday indicated that ageing water infrastructure may be responsible for the water disruptions.
Gift of the Givers Dr. Imtiaz Sooliman says the water crisis at the hospital could not have come at a worse time.
“With rapidly rising COVID-19 numbers in the third wave in Gauteng, Rahima Moosa being one of the feeder hospital’s for the temporarily shut Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, health care workers trying to “catch up” with non-COVID conditions between the second and third wave and add to that a desperate community in the vicinity of the hospital thronging to the hospital in search of drinking water, clearly exacerbating COVID-19 risk.”
Sooliman says while it has delivered bottled water at the request of the hospital, a long-term solution is needed to alleviate the water disruption problem.
He says Gift of the Givers has been granted permission by the hospital’s management and infrastructure team to drill for water.
“Our geologist, Dr Gideon Groenewald, has identified the drilling site. Existing, defunct boreholes will be assessed with a view to resuscitate them whilst drilling for new boreholes then pumping water directly into the hospital infrastructure using booster pumps and setting up taps outside the hospital for community usage once the water has been tested and approved for human consumption.”
Sooliman has requested the donation of bottled water to the hospital while Gift of the Givers team complete the drilling process and laboratory water tests.
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