KwaZulu-Natal floods cause R200m damage to health facilities

The repair of flood-damaged healthcare facilities in KwaZuluNatal is estimated to cost about R200m, the health department’s head of health facilities and infrastructure management Ayanda Dakela told MPs on Friday.

Total damage to infrastructure including houses, roads, businesses and water, electricity and telecommunications is estimated at over R12bn.

KwaZulu-Natal premier Sihle Zikalala said this week that 630 schools that were damaged will need about R400m to be repaired. The total estimate to repair destroyed and damaged homes is R1.9bn.

The floods claimed about 435 lives, affected 116,708 people and 16,662 households. More than 70 people have been reported missing.

Dakela told members of parliament’s health portfolio committee that six districts were affected by the devastating floods. Within those districts a total of 34 clinics were affected, 23 hospitals, three community health centres and five other facilities including offices and emergency medical service stations.

The assessment of the cost had been made by the department’s engineers.

Dakela also said that the Department of Health — which has taken over the repair of the Charlotte Maxeke hospital in Gauteng — had managed to reduce the R1.4bn cost estimated by the department of public

works and infrastructure to about R1bn.

Progress in repairing the hospital which was extensively damaged by fire in April last year has been slow which was why the Department of Health took over the project.

“We are hoping to hand over the emergency unit at the end of

this month,” Dakela said, adding that the repair of blocks one to five would be completed by the end of next year. The department of public works and infrastructure intended to finish the project in January 2027, a timeline which the Department of Health had reduced by 36 months.