A R45 million emergency department has opened at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Johannesburg, almost doubling its emergency bed capacity.

The unit has 13 emergency beds, up from seven in the hospital’s previous emergency department, and includes dedicated facilities for survivors of gender-based violence, forensic evidence collection and police services.

The unit was funded via a R45 million investment by the FirstRand Empowerment Foundation and FirstRand Foundations as part of a partnership with the Gauteng Department of Health.

The department now includes a central nursing station, procedure room, isolation cubicle, consulting rooms, plaster room and triage area, allowing patients to be assessed and treated in dedicated clinical spaces.

It also includes reception and waiting areas, wheelchair-accessible ablutions, an ambulance washing bay, staff facilities and rooms for training and meetings.

A specialised counselling room and a South African Police Service office have been incorporated into the unit for survivors of gender-based violence.

The department also has facilities for the collection and secure storage of forensic evidence, allowing medical treatment, counselling and aspects of the criminal investigation process to be accommodated within the hospital environment.

The project includes upgrades to the department’s heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system, medical gas installation and electrical reticulation.

The opening follows a lengthy redevelopment of the hospital’s emergency facilities.

In August last year, the Gauteng Department of Health announced that renovations to the Emergency Department would begin on August 25, with emergency services temporarily moved to the Paediatric Out-Patients Department while construction was under way.

At the time, the department said the work was expected to be completed by July 2026.

There have been longstanding concerns about infrastructure and staffing at Rahima Moosa.

A Health Ombud investigation into conditions at the hospital previously identified serious infrastructure and staffing problems and recommended that the facility be prioritised for refurbishment.

Rahima Moosa is South Africa’s third-largest mother-and-child hospital and records the second-highest number of births in Gauteng.

The expanded emergency unit therefore adds capacity at a hospital dealing with large numbers of women and children requiring specialist and urgent care.

INSIDE METROS

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