Row over GF Jooste site

Residents accuse MEC of not consulting them about building hospital at new location

TUESDAY MARCH 22 2016

COMMUNITY health forums have reiterated that no public participation was held over the development of the new GF Jooste Hospital, days after provincial Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo announced the hospital’s “business case” had been approved.

The state facility is set to cost R2.5 billion once a site for the hospital has been confirmed. Last year, Mbombo promised residents that the hospital, which stood on Duinefontein Road, would be built in Manenberg.

The construction project’s design stages will be halted until the provincial department has acquired a site for the construction of the state facility.

In her budget speech in the provincial legislature on Friday, Mbombo said the business case involving the hospital that was decommissioned two years ago was given the nod.

Although the provincial department can not specify what the business case refers to, Mbombo’s spokesman, Luyanda Mfeka, said the national Department of Health assessed the hospital’s building plans against a performance criteria.

Mfeka said: “The identification of the site is at the advanced stages. The intent is to construct a regional hospital that would offer a higher level of care than GF Jooste including specialist care services like obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, anaesthetics, mental health services, specialised radiology and general and orthopaedic surgery services.”

Last year, the government’s failure to engage affected communities about plans to rebuild the hospital caused an uproar.

The anger of health and community forums was fuelled by incidents of vandalism at the derelict structure which in 2010 received a R2 million donation from the Oasis Crescent Fund Trust for the upgrade of its emergency ward.

Mayoral committee member for health and Manenberg ward councillor Siyabulela Mamkeli said it was good news that plans for the construction of the hospital were making progress because residents in Manenberg and surrounding areas “needed the facilities”.

“Hopefully there will be no flooding of patients in terms of gang violence, but in such incidents the hospital would be the best place to serve the community of Manenberg.

“It was always my stance that GF Jooste Hospital died in Manenberg – surely the resurrection should be in Manenberg,” Mamkeli said.

The chairwoman of the Cape Metro Health Forum, Damaris Ornellia-Kiewiets, said local and provincial government officials misled the people of Klipfontein Corridor when they gave the impression they had engaged with the community, which was under the impression that the hospital was being built on the same site.

“The concerns were that there were millions invested in the upgrading of the trauma unit.

“Now they (the provincial department) need to search for a site.

“If you look at Human Rights Day and reflect on the gross violations in the province, you will see that the same people who have access to second-level care are the same individuals who are suffering because of the closure of GF Jooste,” Ornellia-Kiewiets said.

Pastor Llewellyn Adams, of the Manenberg Community Policing Forum, said the community he serves were still waiting for feedback from the local and provincial government with regard to the site.

“Unless the government sits down with us and discuss these things, people are not going to allow this to happen,” Adams said.

The Department of Health was not immediately available to comment on the claims that public participation did not take place.