While the Gauteng health department continues to grapple with significant financial challenges, it is now faced with an ageing laundry facility at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (Bara) which requires an overhaul.

This comes after the breakdown of washing machines in November at the 3200-bed hospital which also does laundry for facilities that include Carletonville Hospital, Bheki Mlangeni Hospital and 33 community health centres in Soweto. The breakdown means that laundry services must now be outsourced. 

Modiba says the laundry facilities at  Bara are old and need an overhaul, currently, three facility washing machines are out of service, with only five dryers that are operational. A service provider has been appointed to carry out repairs to restore full functionality as quickly as possible. He says one out of four ironers has already been successfully repaired and the original equipment manufacturer is on site to repair two other ironers.

The provincial health department says, in the interim, the hospital’s laundry is being sent to Dunswart Provincial Laundry on a daily basis. Spokesperson Motalatale Modiba failed to disclose how much this costs the department.  This comes despite the recent revelation in a reply to the legislature that the department has failed to pay R743 million to 69 suppliers over the past year.  Dunswart Provincial Laundry already services 48 clinics and 12 hospitals in the province. According to its website, the services include washing, ironing, folding, packing and dispatching of linen.

“Two laundry service providers have also been appointed to further support the 106 staff members added to work at the hospital’s laundry service to help with ironing and packing of linen and also dispensing of linen to different wards. Already two 5-ton trucks have delivered clean linen over the weekend,” Modiba says. 

Laundry piling up 

Despite the measure introduced by the department, the Gauteng branch of the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) voiced concerns about the standard of cleanliness and poor quality patient care at the hospital due to an ongoing shortage of linen due to the breakdown of all washing machines.

DENOSA regional chairperson Yandisa Zungula paints a grim picture of the piles of laundry stacking up at Bara. He says seeing uncollected and soiled linen piling up in various units and corridors of the hospital has become a daily norm. 

“This worries nurses about the compromised standard of cleanliness in the facility. Because of the way the linen is stored, it is highly likely that most of it may not be fit for re-use as it would have been permanently damaged,” Zungula says. 

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He says nurses at Bara are already facing anger and aggressive behaviour from the patients’ relatives when they saw the state of filth their relatives were subjected to. 

The breakdown of washing machines at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital has thrown a spotlight on the broader challenges of ageing equipment and deteriorating infrastructure.  The infrastructure decay in Gauteng’s public health facilities compromises the patients’ safety and affects the well-being of healthcare professionals. – Health-e News