City slammed on plans for Jooste Hospital

THE ANC has hit out at the provincial government over its decision to sell the GF Jooste Hospital site in Manenberg.

This week, it was announced in a joint City and province media briefing that the site has been sold to the City for use by a law enforcement training facility.

GF Jooste was closed down last year, two years after the provincial government had promised that by next year, a bigger and more efficient hospital would be built.

Officials said on Wednesday that there was a plan to build a regional hospital for the area, but they could not propose a budget, and were still to identify a site for a new facility.

It emerged that a business plan case for a new hospital is to be developed by next year.

The ANC said yesterday that it did not understand why the hospital will be converted into a training facility for metro police.

“The DA took away an essential service from communities that need it most as GF Jooste stood in a drug and gang war zone, and served people who needed immediate attention. Now people must first scrape together for transport before they can go to another overcrowded facility to seek help,” said provincial ANC leader Marius Fransman.

He said it was “shameful” that Premier Helen Zille had in her 2013 State of the Province Address promised the planned reconstruction of hospital.

“In the background, the hospital was scrapped, the site reassigned and the building of a new hospital for that area is shifted for years on the back-burner.”

The ANC is expected to take the matter to the provincial legislature.

Zille’s spokesperson Michael Mpofu said: “The people of Manenberg are gaining a regional hospital, a permanent metro police presence in the suburb’s heart, and a massive investment in education and safety.

“This is the single biggest public investment in the history of Manenberg.”

He said under the ANC, there was no violence prevention through urban upgrading, no ceasefire programme and no metro police units targeting gangs.

“We will continue to work with Manenberg residents to transform the suburb into the place of their dreams.”