Doctors are bringing lunch for patients at South Africa’s Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto, Johannesburg, as a failure to pay food suppliers has brought the huge hospital to “crisis point”. GroundUp quotes professor Martin Smith, clinical head of surgery at the hospital, as saying that because of the failure to pay contractors, biological waste at the hospital was also not being disposed of properly. “Patients’ tissues, septic dressing and used needles and syringes” were currently stored in containers in a storeroom at the hospital because waste management contractors had withdrawn their services,” Smith said, adding that “by next week, the hospital will run out of space to store the biological waste”.
