Construction at north hospital to handle Covid-19 patient influx
Eleven wards in the hospital's surgical corridor will be converted into designated coronavirus wards.
Construction work and preparations are currently underway at the Dr George Mukhari Academic hospital, north of Pretoria, to better handle Covid-19 cases that require hospital treatment.
This work follows the Gauteng health department allocating funds to various health institutions to upgrade their infrastructure to cope with the possible influx of coronavirus patients.
Hospital spokesperson Zwide Ndwandwe said the complex was given a directive to prepare facilities that can accommodate a maximum of 500 beds for virus patients.
“Since the current infrastructure at the hospital didn’t meet the environmental factors required to be in place to deal with Covid-19 positive cases, the hospital opted to renovate 11 wards in the surgical corridor that will be converted into designated coronavirus wards.”
Ndwandwe said these designated wards included the burns unit, which was currently in the final stages of renovation.
“The unit is expected to be ready for admissions in a week’s time while the converted wards in the surgical corridor will still take, at least, three weeks before patients can be admitted.”
He said the hospital also made plans for the installation of modular theatres that will be used to operate positive patients separate from non-infected patients.
He said the renovated wards would accommodate 350 beds and prefabricated structures would be installed to accommodate 150 beds.
“These developments will serve the needs of Covid-19 patients and general patients beyond the pandemic era.”
Ndwandwe said currently the hospital had two tents that were used to manage Covid-19 cases.
“The first tent is for screening and testing. The second one is for admissions of tested patients (waiting for their results) who are too sick to be sent back home to self-quarantine and recover,” he said.
Infrastructure development and property management MEC Tasneem Motara last week Thursday visited the hospital to monitor progress on the refurbishments.
She said this construction aimed to ramp up the plans which included; the increase existing hospital beds and wards.
Motara has inspected several construction sites of special Covid-19 quarantine wards in various health facilities across Gauteng, intended to provide 3 056 beds, complemented by 1 126 beds from external entities.
The construction of special Covid-19 wards within existing hospitals and clinics follows a decision by the Gauteng provincial command council to undertake an emergency operation of building additional health infrastructure to accommodate the growing number of patients affected by the pandemic.
The Department of Health has raised concerns that existing health facilities will not be able to cope with the expected demand.
“We are preparing for the worst-case scenario and we are leaving nothing to chance,” said Motara.
Some of the work done thus far also includes two wards at the Tshwane District hospital in the Pretoria CBD and a 12-bed temporary quarantine facility newly built at Mamelodi hospital.
Infrastructure and development department acting head Richard Makhumisani said some of the projects will be ready for handover by mid-May, whilst the rest will also be accelerated in line with the required health infrastructure standards.
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