As the lights went out suddenly at Rahima Moosa Mother & Child Hospital on Wednesday at noon there were sudden flickers of fluorescent lights and then darkness as the generators battled to kick in.
A doctor said the generators were supposed to kick in immediately at the hospital, in Coronationville, Johannesburg, but that didn't happen.
In the intensive-care unit, life-saving machines began failing and doctors quickly stepped in to keep patients alive. "That took a good few minutes," barked one angry, frustrated doctor who was involved in the sudden rescue. She asked not to be named.
This is their reality every time there is an electricity outage, and power cuts are their worst fears.
"You just see the machines start dying. The generators are supposed to start immediately, but that doesn't always happen. So doctors have to just jump in and start doing the work of the machines to keep the patients alive and breathing," the doctor said, explaining how for a few tense minutes doctors were stretched to "sort out the mess" of a fully occupied unit handling the hospital's sickest patients.
"Well, I suppose everything's OK now. There's no real story here," she said, heaving a sigh of relief as machines blinked back to life and doctors stepped back and got on with their normal tasks.
Wednesday's incident in the ICU happened soon after the hospital, which has been battling without a proper water supply since May 19, finally saw water restored thanks to a borehole installed by aid organisation Gift of the Givers. It was witnessed by a Sunday Times team.
The ill-timed power cuts immediately stopped the new water pumps working, plunging the hospital into darkness and drying up the taps.
The hospital was hit by a water outage on May 19, which was attributed to problems at Rand Water and Joburg Water.
"It's like working in a war zone here," the doctor said. "Sometimes you just get in your car at lunch time and drive to a garage shop to get something to eat and drink and go to the bathroom and flush. Because here you run around all day and you don't drink any water because you know you will just need the toilet.
"But you come to work because you know a lot of people are relying on you. We should not have to live like this."
Another doctor confirmed the frustrations, saying staff morale was at an all-time low.
"We are living in a pandemic. Then we were hit by a patient overload from Charlotte Maxeke Hospital [following a fire there on April 16]. Then the water outage hit us on May 19. And now we have load-shedding to deal with as well. It's a perfect storm," he said.
Hospital CEO Dr Nozuko Mkabayi confirmed that the continuing water outage had affected the hospital badly, but said much was being done to resolve the problem.
She said water tanks had been brought in and that this water was used to flush toilets in the hospital. This involved filling buckets, loading them on trolleys and taking them to wards.
Water for drinking came from bottles that were donated to the hospital.
The shortage of sterilised water, essential for surgery, meant that operations were being delayed.
A senior doctor said: "You can say, if we used to get 100 patients a day, we now get 150 patients. We have not had to turn anyone away, and nobody has died. But the fact is that the wait is much longer for patients, the staff are stretched and all the facilities nearby are doing what they can to help."
The worst cases are attended to while the less severe and more straightforward are transferred to clinics or to other hospitals.
The toilet situation was also being addressed through the donation of 30 portable toilets that have been set up outside.
The head of paediatrics and child health, professor Ashraf Coovadia, said: "We have developed a situation where each staff member brings in their own 5lcontainer of water for their own use every day. We also have trucks coming in to pump water into the hospital, but that works only for the lower floors and is patchy. We are battling."
Joburg Water spokesperson Nondumiso Mabuza said the utility was providing water to the Rahima Moosa Mother & Child Hospital and the Helen Joseph Hospital by pumping water into the hospitals' reservoirs.
Mabuza said Rand Water had also brought four tankers to the hospitals.
"We are in constant communication with hospital management to ensure adequate and consistent water supply and have deployed dedicated teams on site to monitor supply at both hospitals."
Mabuza said the utilities were also using roaming water tankers and stationary tanks in areas that had been without water.
"To eliminate the negative effect of power supply interruptions on the pumping systems between Crosby and Brixton reservoirs, and between the Brixton reservoir and tower, we recently awarded a contract for the provision of mobile generators for these systems, as well as some critical pumping sites as per our short- medium- and long-term plans." Both areas serve communities to the west of the city centre.
The City of Joburg has approved R330m to build a more resilient water and sewer infrastructure, according to spokespersons.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.