On a day when the thermometer in Blantyre climbed towards 35°C, the country’s largest referral hospital simply ran out of water. At Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, known to everyone as Queens, patients and their relatives spent the day searching for something most people take for granted.
The cause was mundane, and that is what makes it bitter. Vandals damaged a valve in a pipeline interconnection chamber in Chileka, and the Blantyre Water Board responded by cutting pumping capacity at Walker’s Ferry to 50 per cent, a measure intended to limit losses through the broken section.
The board said as much in a statement on Thursday evening. For Queens, the result was that the taps stopped.
Director General Professor Patrick Kamalo confirmed the hospital had run dry and had suspended some activities that depend on water. Those activities, in a hospital, are not peripheral.
The consequences reached the wards quickly. Patients referred from across the Southern Region were reportedly turned away, while others struggled to manage basic hygiene in the heat.
“There is nothing we can do without water,” one nurse said, adding that patients whose treatment required it had been sent away.
Health sciences students, who were helping out at the hospital, were seen wandering the streets in search of supplies. One said she had found it hard to concentrate on her work and doubted she could carry on with her duties after hours spent looking for water.
“It is tough today because you cannot even find water to drink,” she said. “So we are just following wherever one returns with water.”
One woman who had come to the hospital after giving birth said nurses had told her to fetch water from home. She was fortunate to have a borehole, she said, but relatives of patients from places such as Phalombe and Mulanje could not easily get home to collect water at all.
The water board’s spokesperson, Evelyn Khonje, said Queens should be among the first institutions to receive priority when supply is disrupted.
“That is a referral hospital,” she said, adding that officials were checking the situation. Her answer was clear on the principle, though less so on what would happen in practice on the day.
Health activist George Jobe said the shortage was a serious concern because water is central to surgery, patient care and hygiene, particularly in hot weather.
He argued that the hospital should have contingency arrangements, including water bowsers ready to deliver supplies when the main system fails.
He also called for a longer-term fix, namely storage tanks able to hold enough water for up to two weeks.
“Blantyre is known for having problems with proper water supply,” he said. “There is need for the referral hospital to have reservoirs.”
For now, the sick and their carers at Queens are left to wait, hoping the taps return before the heat takes a further toll.
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