Covid-19 critical care hospital to be set up at Gallagher Convention Centre
The hospital will have 524 beds and is designed to be upscaled to 1 178 beds, without the need to build a second infrastructure
A critical care hospital facility for Covid-19 patients, which can be built in four weeks, is earmarked for Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand.
Eighty professionals have stepped forward as volunteers to bring this critical care project to fruition.
The team, comprising actuaries, engineers, doctors, architects, project specialists, have been toiling since early March to put together blueprints for this dedicated, state-of-the-art, fully equipped and staffed emergency and critical care Covid-19 testing and treatment hospital.
The group also includes individuals who have been involved in the integrated building and commissioning of private and public hospitals over the past 40 years and have volunteered their expertise and time.
The projected medical facility will be named the Cecilia Makiwane Gallagher Critical Care Hospital, in recognition of South Africa and the continent’s first black registered professional nurse, who qualified in 1908.
The hospital will have 524 beds and is designed to be upscaled to 1 178 beds, without the need to build a second infrastructure. The project is the brainchild of Dr Johan Pretorius, a medical doctor and a director of the not-for-profit Universal Healthcare Foundation.
Pretorius said: “All indications suggest there are dire days ahead in the fight against Covid-19 unless South Africans band together to take swift and drastic action in preparing for the peak of the pandemic.
“Based on our projections, we are certain that we are going to run out of critical care beds in South Africa in the coming months. The Cecilia Makiwane Gallagher Critical Care Hospital, which will add more critical care beds for really ill Covid-19 patients, is of vital importance and extremely urgent.”
Seriously ill hospitalised patients require uninterrupted high-flow oxygen and may require respiratory support, either with continuous positive pressure (CPAP) machines, or in the worst of cases, full intubation and ventilation.
“We believe this facility can potentially save thousands of lives during the pandemic. We anticipate that it will operate for seven months during the most intense part of the pandemic.
“Once decommissioned, all capital and reusable goods will be donated to the National Department of Health.”
While negotiations are ongoing, it is proposed that the hospital could be funded as part of a private-public partnership between government and the Universal Healthcare Foundation and its fund-raising efforts in the private sector. The Universal Foundation will also work closely with Business South Africa, the private and public sectors and the Solidarity Fund.
All 524 beds are equipped up to high care/critical care specifications from the outset. It will also offer an in-hospital pharmacy, in-hospital pathology laboratory, in-hospital radiology area with ultrasound, X-ray and CT scanner equipment, and out-patient triage and testing area.
Isolation cubicles for adults as well as paediatric high care beds are being planned for, with the ability to perform renal dialysis if required.
An oxygen and medical gas plant will be set up to allow for uninterrupted high-flow oxygen without the requirement for cylinders.
The highly contagious environment requires all proper infection control measures to be in place, including ICU hospital-rate flooring that can be cleaned and disinfected frequently. Full infection control measures have therefore been incorporated.
Water, sewage and electricity services are available at the facility and will be extended into the wards to ensure proper hospital standards are adhered to.
Due to the short period in which the facility needs to be commissioned, there will be contractors working 24 hours, seven days a week for about a month.
