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The Tembisa Hospital Accident and Emergency Unit is seen after a fire on 20 April 2025.
The Public Servants Association (PSA) has accused the Gauteng government of attempting to cover up the cause of last month’s fire at the Tembisa Hospital.
Two fires occurred within days of each other at the hospital’s accident and emergency unit and the outpatient unit.
A man accused of allegedly starting the fire is expected to appear before the Tembisa Magistrates Court tomorrow after the court postponed his case on Monday.
The association alleges that infrastructure and safety failures led to the incident.
It accuses the provincial government of using unproven arson claims to deflect accountability and avoid urgent reforms.
PSA Provincial Organiser Madimetja Mautla says, “The Department of Labor and Employment has also flagged that specific section of the building that burnt as one of the potential hazard areas. This thing of a person who is probably maybe delusional and believing that he did burn the building…a building where there were more than 80 patients inside and staff members who were in there, and nobody saw the person? And when you look at this building itself, there is no way that the person can just come and disappear without being seen, especially when they claim that they used petrol or a petrol bomb…there is no way.”
