THE construction and renovations at Paarl Hospital has brought the facility on par with the best public health facilities in the world, said Western Cape Health Minister, Theuns Botha.
The hospital recently completed the second phase of its revitalisation project, less than a year after the new emergency centre was opened and five years after the start of the multi million-rand make-over.
Paarl Hospital has commissioned five new theatres, an eight bed high care unit, a new training centre, two lecture rooms and an auditorium seating 90 people.
The hospital also renovated a 1921 building to accommodate its administration staff, renovated a six-floor 1952 block of wards and commissioned an endoscopy unit.
Before 2010, Paarl Hospital also commissioned a state of the art main kitchen, a new pharmacy, a new outpatient facility, new linen bank, medical stores, a workshop, mortuary and a neonatal unit.
Said Botha: “This hospital certainly compares with the best public health facilities in the world.
It is visually pleasing and planned according to patients’ needs. This is a facility that does the Western Cape and its people proud.”
Paarl Hospital offers specialist out-patient clinics and in-patient services to more than 600 000 people.
Bed capacity increased from 270 to 369 beds. The five theatres, an endoscopy unit, and the emergency unit are complemented by specialist services such as gynaecology and obstetrics, internal medicine, orthopaedics, paediatrics, general surgery, dermatology, ophthalmology, urology, ear nose and throat surgery, psychiatry and anaesthesiology.
Phase three of the project will see the building of a new 22 bed psychiatric ward in the next financial year.
