Pretoria – The Gauteng Department of Health has confirmed a fire broke out at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital (SBAH) in Pretoria, in the early hours of Monday.
“The fire, which affected temporary structures at the facility, was successfully put out by the SBAH hospital team, using the fire extinguishers on site,” said Gauteng Health spokesperson Kwara Kekana.
“Thankfully, there were no patients or staff casualties. Eighteen patients and one corpse that were in separate temporary structures close to where the fire broke out had to be moved to other areas of the hospital as a safety precaution.”
Kekana said the fire broke out at around 1.20am at the wendy house used as a temporary storage area for Covid-19 medical waste and “an in-transit corpse area”.
“It also affected a special temporary isolation unit and a tent used for triage (for persons under investigation). The affected structures were located outside the casualty area of the hospital,” said Kekana.
She said the cause of the fire was unknown.
In August last year, the Gauteng Department of Health said it had opened a case of theft at the Hillbrow police station in Johannesburg after several appliances were stolen at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital following the fire that broke out in April last year.
“The opening of the case follows a reconciliation process to account for equipment and items taken to other facilities to ensure continuity of care. It was through this process that the missing items were identified prompting the hospital management to open a case of theft as the items could not be accounted for,” Motalatale Modiba, head of communication at the provincial department, said at the time.
The stolen items include 10 desktop computers, a fridge, six plasma television sets and three laptops which have “disappeared” since the fire.
“Immediately after the fire no one was allowed inside the building. As a result, security was deployed in the staff residence area and to also monitor the perimeter fence of the hospital, including gate 1 and gate 2,” said Modiba.
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