Following Netcare’s deployment of volunteer nurses, paramedics and medical equipment to the Eastern Cape to cope with the COVID-19 resurgence there, Mediclinic and Life Healthcare are mobilising to deal with the sharp rise in coronavirus cases on the Western Cape’s Garden Route, writes MedicalBrief.
Business Day reports that Mediclinic International and Life Healthcare operate five private hospitals in the region. Mediclinic has sent extra nurses and medical equipment to its hospitals in George, Oudtshoorn and Plettenberg Bay and says it will transfer patients to hospitals as far away as Cape Town should the need arise. Life Healthcare has suspended elective and non-emergency surgery at its hospitals in Knysna and Mossel Bay.
Western Cape Health signed a deal with private healthcare providers earlier to enable state patients to be referred to private facilities should the need arise, but has so far not needed to do so.
In the Eastern Cape, the hotspot is Nelson Mandela Bay metro. Netcare CEO Dr Richard Friedland last week told the media that the group had offered to to admit state patients to its facilities. Unlike the Western Cape, no formal arrangement is in place for Eastern Cape Health to refer state patients to private providers.
Netcare operates the 359-bed Greenacres and 137-bed Cuyler hospitals in the Eastern Cape
[link url="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/health/2020-11-27-private-hospitals-on-garden-route-near-capacity-as-covid-19-cases-surge/"]Full Business Day report (Subscription required)[/link]
See also:
[link url="https://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/netcare-offers-to-assist-struggling-eastern-cape/"]MedicalBrief Archives: Netcare offers to assist struggling Eastern Cape[/link]