The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund is hoping to build a children’s hospital in Johannesburg to provide specialist care for children from across Africa.
The proposed hospital will complement the multimillion-rand development of a health precinct already under way in Hillbrow, which is part of Johannesburg’s R2-billion inner-city regeneration project.
Already the resources being poured into the precinct are having a wider impact as investors refurbish blocks around the area to take advantage of the increased security and the potential market of employed people.
Agmat Badat of the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) says more than R300-million is being spent on redeveloping the precinct.
The concept was developed by the City of Johannesburg, the department of health and Wits University in recognition of the health and welfare needs of people in the area.
Hillbrow is one of the most densely populated areas in Africa — it is estimated that 500 000 people live there — about half are refugees. Healthcare workers say about 30% of the adult population is HIV-positive, fuelled by high levels of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and exacerbated by tuberculosis. The combination of decrepit buildings, little formal employment, low levels of services and high levels of crime have made Hillbrow a place to escape from.
The JDA and its partners hope to start changing this by making the health precinct into a safe, desirable open public space as well as a place of accessible and quality healthcare. Ongoing costs are likely to be between R5-million and R10-million a year.
François Venter, of Wits University’s reproductive health and HIV research unit, which is one of the partners in the creation of the precinct, describes Hillbrow as a ‘hell hole†and says the goal is to improve welfare by going beyond healthcare.
‘The intention is to create a good old fashioned one-stop shop, and to improve the circumstances of patients as well as their health,†he says.
Services will include legal, practical and welfare advice, food support and the treatment and prevention of HIV and other STIs, as well as TB.
Badat says the intention is to create an integrated, safe and secure area. ‘Academics and students will have a challenging and safe place to work, to learn and to do research where they can feel they are making a difference.â€
The precinct is one of eight development nodes being managed by the JDA, all of which are intended to merge over time to complete the regeneration of inner Johannesburg.
The proposed children’s hospital is likely to be situated in, or next to, the health precinct. The Mandela fund’s CE, Sibongile Mkhabela, says groundbreaking could take place within a year. Timelines are dependent on the final form of the proposed hospital, but she hopes it will open within three years.
Fundraising is not likely to be a major problem, she says, with donors already expressing interest in contributing to such a living memorial to Nelson Mandela.
While donor money would build the state-of-the-art hospital, in the longer term it would be expected to be self-sustaining.
Mkhabela says if the hospital is approved, architects will be challenged to design a facility that ‘is not childish, but is done for a child’s perspective — We need to give South Africans an eye for children. Walking into an ordinary clinic, it does not immediately say this is intended for the life of a five year old. We want to change the culture of dealing with children.â€
A new paediatric hospital would be only the second such facility in sub-Saharan Africa — the other is the renowned Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town — and the fourth on the continent. In contrast, Australia has 18 children’s hospitals.