Plans to move Addington Hospital in Durban on the cards

MEC for Health, Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu confirmed, during a recent parliamentary session, that the department is considering relocating Addington Hospital, Berea Mail reports.

Simelane-Zulu was responding to questions about the he 141-year-old hospital’s faulty lifts that have been a constant feature for a number of years and led to patients having to climb stairs on their own.

The MEC suggested that the hospital’s close proximity to the beach was one of the main causes for its maintenance problems.

Addington was designated as one of the country’s Coronavirus response facilities with a dedicated Covid-19 ward.

“The salt air that comes from the ocean affects our lifts continuously and the rust that has been always there is what has been affecting our lifts. As a result we are looking at options of moving the hospital away from where it currently is and building a structure that will actually be manageable and be friendly to patients,” she said.

“The issue of lifts in Addington is going to continue to be a problem, primarily because of the location of the hospital. Addington Hospital is located just opposite the sea, it’s on the beachfront, on an area where you usually have a lot of hotels. It is a facility that is close to 8-storeys high*, so the building itself is quite high.”

In 2013, the department spent R1 billion on maintenance and structural upgrades on the hospital including lifts, pipes, roofs and drainage systems among others.

Berea Mail has emailed questions to the department to find out which stage of the process they are currently in.

The department did not send their comment at the time this article was published.

*In contradiction to the MEC’s statement, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health website listed Addington Hospital as a 16- storey building.