Johannesburg - Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi on Friday said the the soon-to-be-opened Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital was a strangely financed “animal” and not owned by private sector or government, or any one entity.
Motsoaledi was speaking at the official launch of the R1-billion Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital in Johannesburg. He said the opening of this hospital was an auspicious day in the country for the memory of former president Nelson Mandela and the children of South Africa.
“When people ask me whether this is a private or public hospital, I tell them it's a 'new animal' that we have not seen in the country,” Motsoaledi said.
“Children are going to enter this hospital according to their needs, not according to the depths of their pockets. Government will support the hospital forever, we have been working with hospital's trust.”
Motsoaledi decried the state of child neglect in the world, saying that Mandela had set a precedence how to threat children in South Africa.
“Many of us share the love of children regardless of race and our different backgrounds. Sadly many children are neglected and raised in poverty,” Motsoaledi said.
“According to the United Nations, 151 million children around the world grow up with one of their parents dead.”
The state-of-the-art 200-bed and 10-theatres paediatric hospital would be a referral only children's healthcare institution with 17 dialysis machines and seven imaging units that can treat up to 2 500 patients a month, from neurology through to heart and psychiatric conditions.
The hospital is expected to begin admitting patients by mid-2017. Motsoaledi said the world-class hospital would also train more specialists as about 80 percent of them serve only 16 percent of population.
He said the hospital would be classified as a central hospital because of relationship it would enjoy with medical schools, as only 10 others enjoy that status.
Motsoaledi decried the lack of funding for specialist healthcare facilities, highlighting the fact that the Nelson Mandela Children's Hospital was only the fourth children's hospital in Africa besides the 60-year-old Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town and two others in Egypt.
He said the problem in healthcare was not only facilities-related, but rather access to healthcare was the issue. “Healthcare financing is in favour of the rich against the poor.
The time for that to change has arrived. Universal coverage is the equaliser of healthcare,” Motsoaledi said. African News Agency