Update on Phased Closure of GF Jooste Hospital

The phased closure of GF Jooste Hospital and the commissioning of Mitchells Plain Hospital have commenced. The movements that will impact on the functioning of GF Jooste Hospital will take place in the next few days. Patients have been personally informed of the changes that would affect them.

On 27 September 2013, GF Jooste Hospital’s surgical admissions and orthopaedic theatre will close and relocate to Mitchells Plain Hospital.

The majority of GF Jooste hospital staff have been transferred to Mitchells Plain Hospital. The staff that remain at GF Jooste Hospital will work in the emergency centre.

The surgical patients have already been informed and redirected to other metro hospitals – Groote Schuur Hospital, Victoria Hospital in Wynberg and New Somerset Hospital in Green Point for the period Friday, 27 September till Tuesday, 1 October. Booking slips have been issued to these patients.

The closing of GF Jooste Hospital’s surgery theatre heralds a new phase in the commissioning of Mitchells Plain Hospital, when the first acute surgical patients will be admitted from Tuesday, 1 October. The first elective surgeries will start on Wednesday, 2 October. 

Western Cape Minister of Health, Theuns Botha, says: "We are now in the process of commissioning Mitchells Plain Hospital and de-commissioning GF Jooste Hospital. In the short-term this requires some altered arrangements for our patients, but in the long-term it means that our patients will have improved healthcare. I am grateful that our patients understand that it will have better outcomes. Patients who are unsure of arrangements should contact the facility to explain the alternate arrangements."

Chairperson of the GF Jooste Hospital Facility Board, Mercia Isaacs, said: “The GF Jooste Hospital Facility Board was presented with the total roll-out of the services up to the closure of the GF Jooste Hospital in April 2014. We wish the management well and thank them for the hard work they have invested in the process.”

The final closing of GF Jooste Hospital is expected to be in April next year when the hospital’s emergency centre plus a 30-bed overnight ward will move to the back of the Heideveld Community Development Centre (CDC).

The new GF Jooste Hospital will only be ready in the 2018/19 financial year. At present the department is awaiting a report and recommendations from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) with regard to the architectural infrastructure of the present building.