On a chilly Monday morning in Ngcobo, Eastern Cape, nurses at All Saints Hospital stood in line waiting their turn to fill buckets from a JoJo tank.
The hospital serves a population of about 148,000 people from Ngcobo and parts of Cofimvaba, but for weeks it has been operating without access to running water.
A nurse described the situation as deeply frustrating, saying they have to fetch water each time they need to use the toilet or attend to patients. Even the clinic next to the hospital doesnt have water. When you have to do a dressing, you first go fetch water, she said.