Last Sunday afternoon around 17:30pm I was driving through Khayelitsha with my son and I saw the development of Khayelistha Hospital, which looked to in its final stages of construction and finishing. I have been reading about the Hospital on the media, it was a first to have a glimpse of it. I was very delight for people of Khayelistha in the next few month, they will not have to travel very far to get health care. According to the Provincial Government of the Western Cape, It will provide access to quality healthcare straight to the community of Khayelitsha servicing the approximately 500 000 people in the area. The 230-bed medical facility will provide support to the surrounding primary healthcare facilities to ensure that patients receive care at the lowest level of entry into the healthcare system. Patients who require more advanced levels of care will be referred to Tygerberg Hospital.
Services that will be available include:
· Inpatient services including Surgery, Medicine, Paediatrics and Obstetrics
· a referral outpatient service which includes a medical day ward (predominantly for ARV referrals)
· a large accident-and-emergency unit (it is 30% larger than that of a standard district hospital trauma unit, to cater for the high incidence of trauma and homicide in the area)
· a large maternity ward (it is 30% larger than that of a standard district-hospital maternity ward, to cater for the high population growth and birth rate in the area). The Obstetrics unit also includes a nursery and kangaroo mother care facility.
· an EMS/ambulance station with heliport that will serve as the divisional headquarters of the Khayelitsha subdistrict and the Helderberg basin. The hospital will be served by a compliment of more than 500 staff members – this includes medical and non-medical staff as well as staff from soft services tenders (i.e. Catering, Landscaping and Cleaning). Currently there are 240 staff members on the hospital’s establishment and the recruitment and the filling of posts is on-going. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate people of khayelitsha and leader government of DA. As the card caring member of the ANC want to say them bravo and keep it up a good work in the Western Province.