6 days ago
City's health department regrets woman giving birth outside Rabie Ridge Clinic
'The City of Johannesburg Health Department takes all incidents affecting patient care very seriously and regrets the unfortunate situation that occurred several metres away from the clinic.' These were the words of the city's Department of Health spokesperson, Virgil James, when asked about a woman who allegedly gave birth outside the closed Rabie Ridge Clinic. The clinic was closed because the area had a power outage on July 29.
Read more: Woman gives birth outside Rabie Ridge Clinic
'Importantly, this electricity cut has not affected the service delivery at Mayibuye Clinic. The clinic is currently operating full-time on a generator. At no stage has the facility closed its door because of the current electricity challenge,' said James.
He said, for Rabie Ridge Clinic, the outage was only for that day. 'Staff went to assist when they became aware of the incident. However, emergency medical services were already on the scene.
'Again, we are not responsible for electricity outages. We have backup generators and batteries for medical equipment, but they only last for several hours.'
When asked by the paper where community members from the two townships went to access health facilities, he said that, as an alternative, patients were redirected to either Mayibuye (2.5km away) or Bophelong clinics (4.9km away).
James said that the department remains committed to ensuring access to quality health care, even under constrained conditions.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said power supply to Rabie Ridge Clinic was restored on the same day, at approximately 19:10, following planned maintenance. 'The maintenance was conducted at the Allendale substation from 09:00 to 17:00, and affected Rabie Ridge Ext 1 and 2, Mayibuye, Kanana Ext 4 and 5, and Austin View. Although the initial estimated restoration time was 17:00. The team encountered technical issues during the process, which caused delays in completing the work.'
He said this work was essential to facilitate critical upgrades to their network infrastructure. 'The clinic currently has a stable power supply and has not experienced any outages since the planned maintenance. We remain committed to ensuring consistent and reliable electricity for all our customers, including critical facilities such as healthcare centres.'
Follow us on our Whatsapp channel, Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok for the latest updates and inspiration!
