Disciplinary action has been taken against two officials in connection with power outages at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital two weeks ago. After careful review of all process and procedures, it was concluded that the two officials failed to execute their duties adequately.

The officials were served with written warnings.

Gauteng MEC for Health Hope Papo had, at the time of the outages, warned that steps would be taken if it was found that there was dereliction of duty on the part of any employee. The MEC would like to reiterate his sincere apology to patients, their relatives and hospital staff for the inconvenience caused during the power outages.

Working with the Department of Infrastructure Development (DID), the hospital is currently implementing various preventative measures to avoid the recurrence of problems associated with two out the 12 generators. We also have to work closely with City Power and the police to firmly deal with the heartless theft of electricity cables by Izinyoka which disrupts the supply of electricity to health and other community facilities, with possible dire consequences.