Mandela Children’s Hospital must not close down

The Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital is a great example of what can be achieved when government and civil society join hands to do something good for the most vulnerable in our society.

It is one of the most valuable partnerships produced by the public and private sector in this country. It would be unjust to Nelson Mandela’s legacy if the hospital would be forced to close its doors due to insufficient government funding.

Mandela once remarked: “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

It was his dream that such a facility should be built to attend to a myriad and complex health challenges that children face.

Children’s hospitals are a beacon of hope for children who would have had no chance of survival and for parents and communities who would have had no reason to hope.

There are, however, very few such facilities available for the children on the African continent.

As adults, we often think of children as a younger version of ourselves.

But experience in medical circles shows that the way children respond and react to ailments and diseases is vastly different to the way adults do.

This is why children require specialised care and facilities and doctors that are able to address the very unique complexities that their small statures bring.

If children’s healthcare needs are to be met, more focus and resources need to be directed at providing solutions specially designed for children’s needs. This is the gap that the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital fills.

It is often children from poor families who succumb to diseases and complications which could have been averted if they had access to specialised care.

The Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital stands as a model facility that ensures that money is not a barrier for Africa’s children to access specialised care.

Although there are resource challenges, the government should show that it is committed to the most vulnerable people in our society, our children.

It is imperative that the government not only allocates sufficient funding for the operational costs but makes available paediatric doctors and nurses, who are scarce in the field.