Health committee says Mpumalanga’s Mapulaneng Hospital is unsafe to operate

 By Levy Masiteng 

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health said Mapulaneng Hospital in Mpumalanga province should not operate in its current condition, warning that failures in infrastructure and basic services pose risks to patients and staff.

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The committee said an oversight visit to the hospital in Bushbuckridge this week found “severe and systemic” problems linked to “infrastructure decay, funding constraints, management weaknesses and staffing shortages”.

The committee called for urgent reviews of boiler registrations and safety inspections to avert “catastrophic consequences”.

It also raised concerns about medical equipment, saying a CT scanner costing about R10 million remained unused and patients were being referred elsewhere.

It told hospital management to ensure the machine was made fully operational expeditiously.

Delays in building a replacement hospital was compounding the crisis, said the committee.

It said the July completion