Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital; ICU after mystery visitor cuts oxygen; Crisis at Chris Hani Baragwanath ICU after mystery visitor cuts oxygen.
The ICU at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital had to be evacuated at 8 a.m. on Monday after someone who entered a secured room that could only be accessed by an electronic card shut off the oxygen supply to the unit.
After 36 hours, Prof. Rudo Mathivha and her group were still working to stabilize their critically ill patients as of 11 a.m. on Tuesday.
Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital
On Monday morning at three in the morning, an electronic card was used to enter the chamber housing the essential pipes supplying oxygen to the hospital’s intensive care unit and operating rooms.
Wiring was severed for three meters. It stopped the hospital’s intensive care unit’s access to medical air and oxygen. The portion that traveled to the theater was unharmed.
According to the Progressive Health Forum, what took place was comparable to a war crime.
It was a nightmare for Professor Rudo Mathivha, director of the intensive care unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.
She claimed that the employees entered emergency reaction mode. They had to confirm the stability of every patient. In order to use manual oxygen bags from an oxygen cylinder that is provided at each bedside, we had to remove the patients from the ventilator, the nurse stated.
All of our life-supporting devices include sensors that inform us and sound alarms when medical air and oxygen supply are insufficient or nonexistent, the woman explained. The patient’s pulse oximeter saturation meters also displayed low readings, notifying the nurses, she continued.
“Everything was stable before the emergency because we were performing handover rounds from night crew.
The high-frequency oscillators that we utilize for non-traditional modes of ventilation set off the initial alert, which was swiftly followed by conventional ventilators.
This image shows the broken pipe at Johannesburg’s Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. (Image: Provided)
Emergency departure
In the ICU, there were 23 patients. Five patients were healthy enough to transfer to general wards.
The patients were transferred to Ward 23, which has 37 beds available for Covid-19 ICU patients but only had one patient there at the time, according to Mathivha.
According to her, the patient evacuation took almost five hours. Each patient had to be transferred with the assistance of a doctor and nurses, and their health had to be closely watched.
The pipe is not in a vulnerable area, according to Mathivha, who also noted that nothing similar to this has previously occurred at the hospital. It wasn’t a fluke event, she said; a section of the copper line supplying oxygen to the intensive care unit was cut and taken.
Protection was strict.
The copper was located in a plant room, which Victor Moreriane, Chief Director of Communication for the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development, said is typically quite safe.
Currently, the hospital lacks a backup system to deal with situations like this, and Mathivha is unsure if further security measures will be put in place.
Mathivha reportedly brought up the incident with hospital administration and the department of infrastructure development before reporting it to the police.
The event was reported to them, Moreriane said.
He claimed, “We did get a warning from the hospital about the copper being stolen, and we had to go on an emergency procurement to obtain replacement copper.
He said that the wiring’s removed portion had been reinstalled by Monday night.
He continued, “This problem where people are stealing, mainly copper and electrical cables in the hospitals, is really concerning to us.
Five of the department’s own workers had to be let go in the past, he claimed. They were sacked instead of being suspended after it was discovered that they had stolen copper at Charlotte Maxeke, the manager said.
According to Moreriane, the department is presently looking into the situation more thoroughly. In order to be able to take action, he said, “the department has already begun to check if there is video evidence, and we will see what the security personnel come up with.” Moreriane feels that the fact that the copper was in a safe plant room will help their inquiry.
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Hopefully, the security staff will be able to identify who entered the plant room, he said.
The incident, in Moreriane’s opinion, was reported to the police. Thefts are often reported to the police, he said, adding that he had not confirmed this with the security staff.
Unknown conditions
According to highly placed insiders at the hospital, an inquiry found the following:
The area in the secure room where the pipe was cut. Two pipes then go in opposite directions, one serving the ICU with oxygen and medical air, the other the theater.
An electronic access system is present in the room. This proved that it was accessed at three in the morning. The copper line going to the ICU was the only one to be taken out, not the one going to the theaters.
It is obvious that someone was doing it with full knowledge of what would result in turmoil.
Although there were no fatalities, patients were unstable, and some needed to be revived.
Doctors who asked where a senior DID employee was at the hospital were informed that he was at the Nasrec conference.
Assistance was not received after calls were made to the director of the health department and her deputy.
Cases in the operating room were delayed because the ICU was unavailable and the theaters had to close so that craftsmen could mend the broken pipe.
At Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Johannesburg, doctors and nurses accompany patients who are severely medically unstable on their evacuation from the intensive care unit. (Image: Provided)
collusion in action
According to Jack Bloom, a DA health spokesperson for Gauteng, “you can’t rule out sabotage, because there has been a big theft problem for many years.” According to Bloom, despite the hospital spending more than R20 million a year on private security, multiple theft cases still happen. He continued, “I just don’t think they get fair value for it, and it’s a persistent issue. He added that the hospital’s size, which is quite big and dispersed, makes security an issue because it makes it simple to move around.
For Bloom, there was probably cooperation involved in this episode. He asserts that “I don’t think these [theft occurrences] can happen without complicity both inside and even with the individuals who are in charge of watching over the facility.” Added he.
The Office of Health Standards Compliance (also known as the Health Ombudsman), according to Ricardo Mahlakanya, said that should families choose to file a complaint, the office will look into the situation. Mahlakanya clarified, though, that copper theft might not always call for a probe. He stated that he would find it difficult to see the need for an investigation if no patients died as a result of the incident. If no one was injured and a theft occurred in the hospital, what kind of complaint will you make, he said.
It would be challenging to identify if anybody had opened a case without a case number or precise information about who reported the incident, according to police spokesperson Colonel Noxolo Kweza.
The Progressive Health Forum’s convener, Dr. Aslam Dasoo, expressed his group’s “great dismay and worry” at the “cynical assault on life-saving facilities at Chris Hani Baragwanath.”
“It reminds me of the kind of destruction we witnessed at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital in 2021, which was the victim of a significant arson attack.
“This kind of behavior is classified as a war crime in a military fight.
In this instance, we don’t notice a distinction.
“This act of sabotage is disturbing, but it is inexcusable that when it happens, the hospital receives little to no help, destabilizing ICU patients and putting many at risk of death, leaving family members and staff traumatized and worn out.
“The Gauteng Department of Health is a serial incompetent and cannot be trusted in a medical emergency, frequently by omission or commission, leaving facilities inadequately furnished, scandalously understaffed, and totally exposed, while the provincial leaders are unreachable, despite being only a few kilometers from the hospital.
“We support and applaud the fortitude of our coworker who works in health care. We are aware that health professionals nationwide also act in this manner.
He continued, “The provincial administration must be held accountable for this breach of the duty of care.”