Gift of the Givers will be drilling for water at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Coronationville following water delivery disruptions in Johannesburg.

In the last week, there have been water outages across the City of Johannesburg because of below optimum inflow of water into the system and a power failure at the Eikenhof substation. Residents, as well as several hospitals, have been affected.

Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, Leratong Hospital, Helen Joseph Hospital and Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital were affected by the water outages. The Gauteng health department has been forced to bring in water tankers to ensure patients have access to water.

In response to the water cuts, Gift of the Givers donated bottled water, portable toilets and offered assistance to augment the water tankers arriving daily.

"The crisis couldn't have come at a more inopportune time with rapidly rising Covid-19 numbers in the third wave in Gauteng, Rahima Moosa being one of the feeder hospitals for the temporarily shut Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, healthcare workers trying to 'catch up' with non-Covid conditions between the second and third wave and add to that a desperate community in the vicinity of the hospital thronging to the hospital in search of drinking water, clearly exacerbating Covid-19 risk," Gift of the Givers founder Imtiaz Sooliman said.

The organisation's geologist, Dr Gideon Groenewald, has identified the drilling site. The drilling team, which is expected on site this week, will be assessing existing defunct boreholes to resuscitate them while drilling for new boreholes.

"Gift of the Givers drilling teams will be arriving at the hospital shortly, having been granted permission by the management and infrastructure team to drill for water," Sooliman said.

"[The boreholes will] then be pumping water directly into the hospital infrastructure using booster pumps and setting up taps outside the hospital for community usage once the water has been tested and approved for human consumption."

The organisation has called for donations of bottled water while the drilling is under way.

Meanwhile, the health department has attempted to alleviate some of the pressure at the two worst-affected facilities – Rahima Moosa and Helen Joseph hospitals – by transferring patients to other hospitals and performing some operations at sister hospitals.