Public Notice

Construction of new Emergency Centre for Helderberg Hospital
 

Helderberg Hospital is currently undergoing construction of its Emergency Centre (EC) as part of a R40 million upgrade. The upgrade is scheduled to be completed in March 2020.

Services at the Emergency Centre will be affected during this time. However, emergency care will still be rendered to patients with urgent, life-threatening conditions and injuries. Patients with non-life-threatening, minor conditions (triaged green and yellow) are urged to visit their nearest clinic for treatment to reduce service pressure and waiting times at the EC.

The hospital is experiencing an increase in service pressure as a direct result of the burden of disease and the impact substance abuse has on interpersonal violence, resulting in trauma causes flooding the EC over weekends.

The hospital is actively working towards improving service delivery to the community. The new emergency centre will bring improvement in patient care experience through better flow of patients, as well as improved working experience for the staff.

The upgrade of the EC will be done in one process with as limited disruptions as possible. Parking will be affected for the duration of the construction project.

Western Cape Government Health has a number of facilities around the Helderberg and Strand area that assist to ease the pressure from Helderberg Hospital. These facilities are Strand, Gustrouw, Nomzamo and Macassar Community Day Centres.

Nomzamo Community Day Centre (CDC) opened its doors for the community in February 2016. It services the Lwandle area and provides much needed health services to the communities of this area. This facility also helps to ease the pressure at the Helderberg Hospital for the cases which can be seen at its level.

Nomzamo CDC offers a holistic package of primary health care service which includes treatment of chronic and acute conditions, an Infectious Disease Unit, consulting and counselling spaces, education, training and physical therapy sessions, a Women and Child Health Unit, and a pharmacy.

Western Cape Government Health would like to apologise to patients and residents in the area for the inconvenience caused and the noise level during construction. The new Emergency Centre will have a significant and positive change as we strive to provide better service, as well as improve on patient centred care.

The department has a Complaints Policy that is implemented at all of our facilities. We encourage patients to make us aware of unsatisfactory service or incidents so that we can investigate and improve our services. A formal complaint should be lodged when the patient experienced a problem and should be addressed to the Quality Assurance Manager, Ms Anita Theron.

Complaints received through our formal complaint platforms are regarded as serious and are recorded and investigated. We request patients to follow the correct complaints procedure to enable us to take action and improve our service delivery.

Issued by the Directorate: Communications for Western Cape Government Health.