While clean water should be the most basic guarantee in a health facility, patients at Jubilee District Hospital in Hammanskraal, Gauteng, are being forced to buy their own drinking water — even on scorching summer days. The hospital, which serves thousands of people each month, is crippled by an unreliable water supply, leaving patients and staff to fend for themselves amid a long-running water crisis. I had been working around Hammanskraal on a particularly hot day when I suddenly felt dizzy and decided to stop at Jubilee to check my blood pressure.
After parking, I walked a few metres towards the reception. Before I reached the entrance, a strong foul smell drifted from the building, a stench that seemed to cling to the area. Feeling light-headed, I went straight to the security desk to register my details and asked for some water.
The security guard didn’t hesitate. “You have to buy your own water there,” she said, pointing to a makeshift tuckshop outside and calling a colleague to walk me there. On the way, I asked why a hospital, a place meant to restore health, could not provide something as basic as drinking water.
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I worry when I see water in the taps because my son will think it’s safe to drink. Imagine bringing a sick family member to the hospital only for them to get worse because of the water condition “We don’t trust the water here, so we buy our own. We only use it for flushing.
People who can afford it buy water from the tuck shop. For those who can’t, we fetch water from the tanks outside that are filled by water trucks,” he said. As we approached the vendor, two or three health workers in scrubs walked past carrying grocery bags containing 5lwater bottles, an everyday reality for staff who must bring their own water to make it through a shift.
Inside the hospital, water dispensers stood empty. Jubilee District Hospital, a 551-bed facility, serves a large and growing catchment area spanning parts of Gauteng, the North West and sometimes other surrounding provinces. According to the provincial health department, its accident and emergency unit sees more than 30,000 patients a year.
Yet despite the demand, the hospital has repeatedly suffered from the water shortage affecting the larger Hammanskraal area. During the2023 cholera outbreak, which brought renewed attention to water, sanitation and hygiene conditions, the crisis at the hospital laid bare the dangerous consequences of plumbing failures and neglect.
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