Ngwelezana Hospital upgrade too slow – Dhlomo
MEC for Health in KZN, Doctor Sibongiseni Dhlomo, visited the hospital on Tuesday to assess the progress made on the R85-million project.
CONSTRUCTION on a new surgical ward at Ngwelezana Hospital is moving too slowly.
This according to MEC for Health in KZN, Doctor Sibongiseni Dhlomo, who visited the hospital on Tuesday to assess the progress made on the R85-million project.
‘As the department we are not happy because this project is still under construction and we were promised completion by latest January 2017.
‘There are now delays and we are expecting completion only by the end of February. We cannot continue sending patients away because there is no space for them in the wards.’
Ngwelezana is a regional hospital that caters for the uThungulu, uMkhanyakude and Zululand districts which have a combined population of three million people, resulting in the hospital serving around 7 700 patients month.
To alleviate severe congestion at the facility, level one patients are being transferred to eShowe Hospital.
The expansion will add 192 surgical ward beds to the existing 554 (of which only around 440 are usable) as well as a new crisis centre housed in a three-storey state-of-the-art building, plus numerous upgrades to existing infrastructure.
Construction has been ongoing since beginning 2015 and so far work on the hospital’s corridors, water and electrical systems, mortuary, college laboratory and a new medical ward have been completed.
‘We thank the construction company for their hard work so far, but we hope there will be no further delays,’ Dhlomo concluded.
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