Isuzu supports Bay business community in Covid-19 response
It is all hands on deck as the Nelson Mandela Bay business community sets out to assist the city’s public health services.
In support of the doctors, nurses and health-care workers who are serving on the front line of the Covid-19 crisis, the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber established the Ubuntu Covid-19 initiative.
Through this collaborative approach, businesses in Nelson Mandela Bay have been proactively mobilising their resources to support emergency response readiness activities.
Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber president Dr Andrew Muir said the business community had placed a high priority on supporting initiatives that contributed directly to the city’s preparedness for the possibility of higher levels of Covid-19 infections.
“We called upon business chamber members and the broader business community to support our Ubuntu Covid19 Fund so that together we can avert a potential humanitarian crisis,” Muir said.
Isuzu Motors South Africa volunteered to undertake the task of renovating the Livingstone and Provincial hospitals to increase capacity to accommodate Covid-19 patients who would require screening, testing and admission.
Led by Isuzu’s maintenance manager Angus Clark, the team had eight days to complete the renovations to ensure the hospitals were ready to receive Covid-19 patients.
Isuzu’s maintenance team and contractors worked around the clock to deliver refurbished medical facilities at the two hospitals.
“The rooms required cleaning, painting, fixing of electrical fittings, converting rooms into ablution and shower facilities, additional internal and external plumbing to four floors, replacing toilets and repairing broken beds and trolleys,” Clark said.
The renovations at Livingstone will ensure increased capacity of an additional 135 beds for Covid-19 patients as well as additional cleaning facilities, extra gas points and more ablution facilities.
An additional isolation facility was created next to each ward to allow medical staff to change and sanitise before entering the ward.
Oxygen and vacuum equipment were serviced and additional points were added to increase the provision of oxygen to the extra beds as well as the existing beds.
“We also replaced over 100 broken windows and hung screens and curtains in the wards,” Clark said.
Livingstone is the dedicated Covid-19 medical institution and the old decommissioned casualty building at the Provincial Hospital was refurbished to accommodate 25 beds to serve as a transfer location for Covid19 patients.