New mental health unit for Midrand

Life Healthcare has established another new mental health unit, Life Carstenview, at Life Carstenhof Hospital in Midrand.

The opening of Life Carstenview will increase the number of mental health units available to eight.

Speaking at an opening ceremony, healthcare services operations executive, Dr Nilesh Patel said Life Healthcare had been actively expanding its mental health capacity to help cope with the demand from local communities as well as the broader population.

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“South Africans suffer from generally high levels of stress and trauma fuelled by the socio-economic and political situation in the country and this is reflected in the prevalence of mental illness in the population,” he said.

A study conducted by South African Stress and Health revealed that 17 million people, or about a third of the population, will have suffered from some form of mental illness at some stage during their lives.

“Where possible, we endeavour to make our specialised services available in every region of the country and Life Carstenview is another example of our strategy of offering a wide range of medical disciplines at one hospital,” said Patel.

“The range of disciplines on offer at Life Carstenhof now includes acute rehabilitation, renal dialysis and now a state-of-the-art mental health facility in addition to the existing medical specialties.”

Life Carstenview is a 60-bed facility which offers 30 substance abuse, 15 voluntary, five involuntary and 10 assisted beds. The R51 million facility was designed to provide comprehensive inpatient and outpatient care for adults suffering from mental health conditions.

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“We extremely proud of this latest addition to our mental health capacity. Ultimately, Life Healthcare’s vision for the facility is to offer holistic treatment to patients and to prepare the for successful re-integration into society as soon as possible.”