COVID-19 field hospital opens – thank you Volkswagen Group SA

Photo credit: algoafm.co.za

Volkswagen Group South Africa (VWSA) constructed a field hospital in Nelson Mandela Bay and handed it over to the Eastern Cape Health Department on Tuesday 23 June. The hospital will be operated and staffed by the Provincial Health Department. 

The collaboration between VWSA, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the German development agency GIZ, the Eastern Cape Department of Health, Nelson Mandela Bay and the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber, is a R100-million project. The hospital will provide 1 485 beds during the first phase, including 202 beds for patients needing high care and five isolation beds. The hospital could facilitate up to 3 000 beds at completion.

VWSA will not only hand-over the facility but will help source the necessary equipment to improve the process flow of testing, with the goal of increasing the current laboratory daily average output of 1 500 tests to more than 3 000 tests.

“This pandemic requires us to act decisively and with speed. VWSA has answered this call by completing and delivering phase 1 of the medical facility at a time when it is desperately needed by our Metro which is currently experiencing an alarming increase in infections,” said VWSA chairperson and MD Thomas Schaefer.

Image credit: Volkswagen Newsroom

The field hospital has been named the Rev. Dr Elizabeth Mamisa Chabula-Nxiweni Field Hospital, after a health community activist that played an important and successful role in reducing the deaths of initiates. Chabula-Nxiweni said she was honoured by the gesture. Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said that the name was fitting as Chabula-Nxiweni had left a legacy of excellence and compassion.

The new hospital may attend to COVID-19 positive patients, but it remains the responsibility of South Africans to continue to adhere to the regulations put in place by the government. In his address Minister Mkhize called on South Africans to take responsibility and wear masks in public, practice social distancing and good hygiene.

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