The Western Cape government has already received offers from the private sector for the R2,4-billion rebuilding of apartheid-era Tygerberg Hospital, provincial health minister Theuns Botha said on Tuesday.
The hospital, in Cape Town’s northern suburbs, was constructed with duplicate facilities for whites and ”non-whites”, down to racially segregated mortuaries, and separate swimming pools and recreation halls for nurses.
Its outdated design includes 42km of corridors, and 82 entrances, which administrators describe as a security nightmare.
Botha said in a statement that the province was eyeing a public-private partnership for the project.
”We have already received offers from the private sector,” he said.
The new structure would be built adjacent to the existing hospital building, which would be retained for use possibly as an office block, generating income for the province.
Botha said the cost of stocking the new hospital with medical equipment would add another R1-billion to the bill.
The department’s chief director for professional support services, Andy Cunninghame, said the province wanted construction to start in 2014, and the hospital to be commissioned in the 2018/19 financial year.
The new hospital is being planned for 1 321 beds.
The existing hospital runs 1 308 beds, and treats 55 000 inpatients, 67 000 casualties and 379 000 outpatients a year.
It is the largest hospital in the Western Cape. — Sapa