Steve Biko Hospital to switch off power on two floors for electrical repairs

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The Gauteng Department of Health announced that the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria scheduled a four-hour electrical power outage for Saturday, 22 August 2026, to conduct infrastructure repairs. The maintenance, which follows a September 2025 intervention, aims to strengthen the hospital's power backup system by repairing additional changeover breakers. The outage affects levels 8 and 9, which house critical maternity, neonatal, and paediatric units, requiring the relocation of high-risk patients and the postponement of 33 elective surgeries.

Consequences

Patients requiring respiratory support will be relocated to continue receiving safe care, while emergency clinical services will be managed through hospital contingency arrangements. Full normalization of hospital operations is expected to take approximately 16 hours following the repairs to facilitate the movement of patients back to their original wards.

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