GF Jooste Hospital will only be rebuilt in five years. Photo by Mary-Anne Gontsana.
1 October 2013
It caused a controversy last year, leaving many people wondering how exactly it would work. But what was supposed to be the closure and reconstruction of GF Jooste Hospital this year, will now only happen in 2018.
A statement released in June 2012 by Western Cape Health MEC Theuns Botha said: “Present planning is to close GF Jooste Hospital at the end of March 2013, but that will depend on when the Mitchell’s Plain Hospital will open. It is planned that reconstruction should start in April 2013 and will take approximately 36 months to complete. The R550 million reconstruction of GF Jooste will provide a full range of district hospital services for the people living in the Klipfontein area with specialist outreach and support.”
The announced reconstruction brought mixed reactions from the public and civil society with the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) protesting against it since the Provincial Department of Health and the City of Cape Town had consulted with neither the communities serviced by GF Jooste nor the hospital staff.
Provincial department of health spokeswoman Faiza Steyn said, “All patients are still attended to at GF Jooste with maternity cases referred to Mowbray Maternity Hospital. All services were rendered; there was no downscaling of any services.”
Helene Rossouw, spokesperson for MEC Botha, said due to the fire at Mitchell’s Plain Hospital’s emergency centre during the construction period late last year, the commissioning of Mitchell’s Plain Hospital was delayed. This in turn had impacted on the decommissioning of GF Jooste Hospital.
TAC’s Amelia Mfiki said they had received no news about new developments regarding GF Jooste, since the last time they engaged with the provincial department of health. In April this year, they were told that plans regarding the construction still needed to be submitted to the portfolio committee.
This story has been fact checked by GroundUp.