Cape Town - Ten years after the decommissioning of the GF Jooste Hospital in 2013 and the province’s promise of a new hospital to be named the Klipfontein Regional Hospital, all that is visible at the site is a dusty cement mixer, a dilapidated site office and a small pile of bricks.
ANC provincial health spokesperson Rachel Windvogel visited the site with reporters on Tuesday following a response to her written question to Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo, which elicited the response that despite R24 million being allocated from the national Treasury to the project since 2019, not a cent has been spent.
Saying the hospital was in the concept stage, Mbombo’s written response to a question about how much of the money was spent and how much was returned to the Treasury was: “The project has not incurred any expenditure, and funding has been reprioritised”.
Speaking at the site, Windvogel said: “The people were lied to. We have now been told the hospital will only be ready for operation in 2032.
“That is 14 years after the originally planned date of 2018/19 financial year and 18 years after the hospital was closed down.
“For 18 years the people of the Klipfontein region have been robbed of their hospital.”
She was accompanied by ANC provincial social development spokesperson Gladys Bakubaku-Vos and ANC alternate member on the standing committee on health, Ayanda Bans.
Department spokesperson Mark van der Heever said the delay in the start of the project was because the original professional services providers tender was cancelled and had to be re-advertised, evaluated and adjudicated.
He said the re-advertised tender for the design and construction management of the new Klipfontein Regional Hospital had been awarded to a construction consortium in September last year.
When the hospital is completed it is meant to act as a referral hospital for surrounding communities.
Van der Heever said: “Earmarked funding within our department has been allocated each year to ensure the project can move forward as and when is required.”
He said when complete the hospital would relieve pressure on the Groote Schuur, Red Cross Children’s Hospital, Tygerberg and Somerset facilities, as well as Mowbray Maternity, and the Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain district facilities.
