At 3am on Monday morning an electronic card was used to access the room where vital pipes providing oxygen to the hospital’s ICU and surgical theatres were housed. Three metres of wiring was cut. It cut off the oxygen supply and medical air supply to the hospital’s intensive care unit. The part that went to the theatre was left intact.

The Progressive Health Forum said what happened was equal to a war crime.

For Professor Rudo Mathivha, head of ICU at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, it was a nightmare.

“The staff went into emergency response mode,” she said. They had to make sure each patient was stable. We had to take the patients off the ventilator and using manual oxygen bags from an oxygen cylinder which is available at each bedside,” she explained. 

“All our life-sustaining equipment have sensors that alert us and sets off alarms when oxygen supply and medical air are low or absent,” she said. In addition, the patient’s pulse oximeter saturation meters read low values, alerting staff, she added. 

“Prior to the emergency, we were doing handover rounds from night staff so everything was stable.

“The first alarm came from the high-frequency oscillators that we use for non-conventional mode of ventilation, they were immediately followed by the conventional ventilators.”

This is the picture of the cut pipe at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, Johannesburg. (Photo: Supplied)

Emergency evacuation

There were 23 patients in ICU. Five were well enough to move to general wards.

“The patients were evacuated to Ward 23, which houses Covid-19 ICU patients and has a capacity of 37 beds and only had one patient in it,” Mathivha explained. 

It took roughly five hours to evacuate the patients, she said. Each patient had to be accompanied by a doctor and nurses and their condition had to be carefully monitored as they were being moved.

Mathivha explained that something like this has never happened at the hospital and that the pipe is not in a vulnerable space.  “It is not a freak accident, the copper pipe feeding oxygen into ICU was cut, and a portion was removed,” she said. 

Security was tight

Victor Moreriane, Chief Director of Communication from the Gauteng Department Of Infrastructure Development, said the copper was in a plant room, which is usually very secure.  

The hospital currently does not have a backup system to counter incidents like this, and Mathivha is unaware if additional security measures will be implemented. 

The incident was allegedly reported to the police after Mathivha raised the matter with hospital management and the department of infrastructure development. 

Moreriane confirmed the incident was reported to them. 

“We did receive an alert from the hospital about the stolen copper, and we had to go on an emergency procurement to find replacement copper,” he said. 

He said the removed part of the wiring was replaced by Monday evening. 

“We are very worried about this phenomenon where people are stealing, especially copper and electrical cables in the hospitals,” he added. 

In the past, the department had to dismiss five of their own employees, he said. “They were found to have stolen copper at Charlotte Maxeke, so we did not even suspend them, we just dismissed them,” he explained. 

The department is currently investigating the matter further, according to Moreriane. “The department has already started to see if there is video evidence and we will see what the security personnel come up with so that we are able to take action,” he explained. As the copper was in a secure plant room, Moreriane hopes this will aid their investigation. 

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

“Hopefully we should be able to trace who went into the plant room through the security personnel,” he said. 

Moreriane believes that the incident was reported to the police. “I have not checked with the security guys but usually it is standard practice that if there is a theft, it is reported to the police,” he said. 

Mysterious circumstances

It is understood that an investigation by highly placed sources at the hospital revealed the following: 

The place where the pipe was cut is in a secure room. From there two pipes run in different directions — one supplying oxygen and medical air to the ICU and one to theatre. 

The room has an electronic access system. This has shown that someone accessed it at 3am. Only the copper pipe to the ICU was removed, not the one that goes to the theatres. 

It is clear that someone knew exactly what they were doing and the chaos it would cause. 

While there had been no fatalities, patients were destabilised and some had to be resuscitated.

When inquiring about the whereabouts of a senior DID person at the hospital doctors were told that he was attending the Nasrec conference. 

Calls to the head of the health department and her deputy did not result in assistance.

Due to the unavailability of the ICU and a shutdown in theatres to allow artisans to fix the cut pipe, cases in surgical theatre were delayed. 

Doctors and nurses accompany their highly medically unstable patients as they are evacuated from the ICU at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, Johannesburg. (Photo: Supplied)

A case of collusion 

“You can’t rule out sabotage, but there has been a massive theft problem for many years,” says Jack Bloom, Gauteng DA health spokesperson.  The hospital spends more than R20-million annually on private security, yet numerous theft incidents occur, according to Bloom. “I just don’t think they get good value for it, and it is an ongoing problem,” he added. The size of the hospital also poses a security challenge as it is very large and spread out, making it easy to move between places, he explained. 

For Bloom, this incident is more likely a case of collusion. “I don’t think they [theft incidents] can happen without collusion internally or even with the people who are supposed to guard the hospital,” he says. he added. 

Ricardo Mahlakanya, spokesperson for the Office of Health Standards Compliance (known as the Health Ombudsman), said that should families wish to lodge a complaint, the office would look into the matter. However, Mahlakanya explained that copper theft would not necessarily warrant an investigation. If no patients pass away because of the incident, he said he will struggle to see the need for an investigation. “What kind of complaint are you going to lodge if no one died and because it is a theft that happened at the hospital,” he said. 

Police spokesperson Colonel Noxolo Kweza explained that without a case number or specific details about who reported the incident, it would be difficult to confirm if anybody had opened a case. 

Dr Aslam Dasoo, the convener of the Progressive Health Forum, said they were “deeply dismayed and alarmed by this cynical assault on life-saving infrastructure at Chris Hani Baragwanath. 

“It is reminiscent of the type of damage we saw at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital in 2021, which suffered a massive act of arson. 

“In a military conflict, this sort of act is regarded as a war crime. 

We see no difference in this case. 

“This act of sabotage is disconcerting, but it is unconscionable that when it occurs, there is scant or no assistance to the hospital, resulting in ICU patients being destabilised and placing many at great risk of dying, leaving family and staff traumatised and exhausted. 

“The Gauteng  Department of Health is a serial incompetent and cannot be relied upon in a medical emergency, often, by omission or commission, leaving facilities poorly equipped, scandalously understaffed and totally vulnerable, while the provincial leaders are unreachable, despite being only a km or two from the hospital.

“We stand in solidarity with and commend the resilience of our health worker colleague. We know that health workers all over country do so, as well.

“The provincial government must be made to account for this dereliction of the duty of care,” he added.

Comment from the hospital will be added when it is supplied.  DM/MC