Valkenberg’s R1bn make-over will eliminate court backlog
VALKENBERG Hospital is to get a R1 billion revamp, which will wipe out the backlog of forensic psychiatric observations for awaiting trial prisoners, says the provincial Department of Health.
Professor Sean Kaliski, the Western Cape’s head of forensic psychiatry, said the 15 beds dedicated for forensic psychiatry observations for awaiting trial prisoners would triple to 45.
Buildings at the hospital will get a facelift, and 17 new ones will be built.
Valkenberg is the province’s oldest psychiatric hospital and celebrated its 120th anniversary last year.
The hospital, which has been built piecemeal over the years, will not only be modernised, but will also be expanded into different “villages”, including a forensic village and an acute village.
Its bed capacity increase by 92 to 432.
The buildings have been designed around courtyards and the site has been arranged to form three distinct precincts.
Historic buildings will be used for administration purposes. To the north will be the acute admission village, and to the south, towards the M5, will be the forensic psychiatry villages.
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The number of acute beds is expected to increase by only 10 percent, but Dr Peter Milligan, head of acute services at Valkenberg Hospital, said the patient experience and that of staff would improve dramatically as acute and forensic patients, who were sometimes considered dangerous, would no longer have to share services and resources.
He said the new hospital would provide a friendly therapeutic healing environment for patients and a safe environment for staff.
Kaliski said the increase in beds would “wipe out” the waiting list of prisoners needing psychiatric observations.
There were about 140 prisoners on the waiting list. The average waiting time ranged between six and eight months.
“We expect the service to improve dramatically.”
Kaliski said the upgrade was great news for the justice system, which was battling with serious delays in court cases.
Health MEC Theuns Botha said the revamp had become a priority project for the provincial government because of the need to provide a facility that would be capable of providing a better forensic psychiatric assessment service to the Department of Justice.
“For some years now, normal judicial processes have been seriously delayed because the current Valkenberg Hospital does not have the capacity to assess awaiting trial persons who have committed crimes as serious as murder,” he said.
“The situation has for many years been of great concern for the legal and psychiatric healthcare fraternity.”
The National Prosecuting Authority spokesman in the Western Cape, Eric Ntabazalila, welcomed the revamp, saying some court cases were delayed by up to six months because of the long waiting list at Valkenberg.
“The planned improvement of the hospital will assist a great deal as it will finalise cases quicker,” he said.
The revamp of the hospital, which will be the largest construction project yet undertaken by the provincial government, is expected to start early next year and be completed in July 2016.
The tender will be awarded in November.