Huge shortage of hospital beds

Cape Town - In both the private and the public sectors South Africa is struggling with a tremendous shortage of hospital beds.

Kurt Worral-Clare, CEO of the Hospitality Association of SA (Hasa), said private hospitals have about 31 500 beds is in total.

These beds serve about 8 million members of medical funds, but it is estimated that another 2 million use them.

According to Worral-Clare there are not nearly enough neonatal, paediatric or maternity beds. Moreover, the geographic distribution of the beds could mean that certain provinces have huge shortages of certain types of bed.

The public sector has an estimated 100 000 hospital beds and has the same headache - beds are far too few, the geographic distribution differs and certain types of beds can't be used for all patients.

Meanwhile the population is growing faster than hospital beds become available. Worral-Clare says it is especially concerning because South Africa has a large number of HIV/Aids sufferers. Greater provision needs to be made for them.

Investors in the hospital sector are however hampered by the licensing process to get permission to build new hospitals, which can apparently take so long that private investors eventually lose interest.

Worral-Clare welcomed the opening of a new R290m Medi-Clinic hospital at Cape Gate in the northern Cape Town suburbs.

The Cape Gate Medi-Clinic is the first hospital that this private hospital group has built in South Africa in 18 years, although the group has expanded in other countries.

The rooms of the new hospital - with its 140 beds - are double the size of those in ordinary private hospitals.

- Sake24.com

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