Hospital with digs for folks

1 Oct 2015

The privately managed, government-funded Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital could be a model for the way hospitals operate when national health insurance is rolled out. The hospital is due to open in Johannesburg in December next year.

skeeze via pixabay

Yesterday, Mary-Jane Morifi, a member of the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital Trust, said: "Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi is quite excited about this. "He said: 'If you guys get this right, this might be the model for what you do in the rest of South Africa'."

Morifi was speaking at the construction site of the hospital, near Wits University. The specialist referral hospital for severely ill children from Southern African Development Community countries will have 200 beds. It will have an estimated annual R500-million operational and staff budget, which will be funded by the government. It will be run by a private management team accountable to the trust, which has raised more than R700-million of the R1-billion needed for construction and equipment.

The opening is planned for December, the month Mandela died.

Mediclinic is being paid to help procure equipment. An executive team or private operator will be appointed and paid to manage the hospital. Private patients will be required to pay for treatment through their medical aid schemes. Poor patients will receive free treatment. Doctors and nurses will be hired by the government.

Ronald McDonald house

The trust yesterday handed over a site on the hospital grounds to Ronald McDonald SA, which will build on it accommodation for 28 mothers, or families, whose children are receiving treatment at the hospital. It will have 28 rooms and bathrooms, a kitchen and a meditation room. The RonaldMcDonald house, the first in Africa will be a home for families from far away to be near their children.

Mandela visited a family friend child who had suffered severe burns and later died in early 2000 while the child was being treated in an adult Intensive Care Unit. "Mr Mandela couldn't understand why this six year old was in intensive care with "old people."

It was terrifying for the child" said Magomola. So his dream for a children's hospital started there she said. Ronald McDonald SA chairman Reggie Skhosana said that when his child was being treated at a hospital some years ago, he discovered a woman who was sleeping in the hospital and toilets. Her child had been transported for treatment to South Africa by the Botswana government but she had nowhere to stay." The house would accommodate people such as she, he said, allowing them to be close to their sick children

Source: The Times

Source: I-Net Bridge

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