The Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, opened the revamped hospital on Friday, 14 May. The Gauteng Department of Health initially said the hospital, which belongs to AngloGold Ashanti, would be used as a critical care facility for Covid-19 patients. As more than a year has passed since the project started in April 2020, opposition parties criticised the government for wasting money on the project. Almost R500 million was spent on a facility that does not even belong to the government. However, the premier said there are now long-term goals for the hospital. He added that AngloGold Ashanti had effectively agreed to donate the hospital to the government by selling it for R1. Until the transfer has been completed, the government will lease the facility. “The facility will address the dire shortage of critical care beds in the West Rand district and relieve pressure from both Leratong and Carletonville hospitals. “It will form part of the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital cluster, focusing on general medicine. It will also cater for mental health patients,” he said.
He added that the hospital would also become a provincial facility to treat mental health patients in future. “AngloGold Ashanti Hospital forms part of an important intervention to ensure that the com- munity of the West Rand is better off after the pandemic. They will have access to better infrastructure going forward,” he said. The Gauteng MEC for infra- structure development, Ms Tasneem Motara, told the Herald that the work on the hospital cost R470 million to complete. It included breaking out the walls and building new ones to create 11-bed wards, installing new floors and ceilings and a water and sewage network. It also involved equipping the hospital with a bigger mortuary, pharmacy, 10,000-litre backup water tank and generators. She says the ceilings had to be taken out because some of the old ones consisted of asbestos, some-thing the department had not realised when they started the work. Makhura lashed out at “so-called business forums” and “lots of chance takers” who wanted to get money out of the project. He blamed them for stalling the work. He also shared more information about another big project with another mining house, Sibanye-Stillwater, to develop our area. He says investors have pledged R46 billion for the development, which will entail, among other things, erecting solar panels on 300 hectares of land. Another 100 hectares will be used for small urban farming, including horti- culture and meat production. Some of the produce will be for the export market. 
