- Gift of the Givers is drilling boreholes to assist hospitals experiencing water shortages.
- The charity organisation is expecting to complete a borehole to serve Rahima Moosa Hospital on Thursday.
- Some Gauteng hospitals have been without water for a few weeks.
The Helen Joseph and Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospitals are nearly two kilometres apart and have suffered dire water shortages for the past few weeks.
The Gauteng health department has moved some patients from Helen Joseph to neighbouring hospitals for treatment.
Other hospitals affected by the water cuts include Leratong Hospital and the Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital.
The department has provided mobile water stations to the affected hospitals.
Now, Gift of the Givers plans to provide a permanent solution for such water issues; the organisation started drilling a borehole for Rahima Moosa Hospital on Wednesday.
Site manager Alfred Mahlambi said they hope to complete the construction of the borehole by Thursday afternoon.
"We are going to finish in the [Thursday] afternoon. When we are done with the borehole, it needs to be tested for about 24 to 48 hours to make sure there is enough water."
Once that is done, Mahlambi said, they will test that the water is suitable for human consumption.
Earlier on Thursday, Gift of the Givers was in a meeting with the management of Helen Joseph to discuss the drilling of a borehole.
Mahlambi said:
The DA's Gauteng spokesperson, Jack Bloom, said the provincial health department needed to come up with a permanent solution to the water issue.
"Water security measures are urgently needed for Gauteng public hospitals as patients suffer from persistent water failures by Johannesburg Water and Rand Water.
Bloom said:
Bloom said he was told by healthcare workers that the water situation was dire, and it might lead to patients dying.