What’s happening at the Addington Childrens Hospital?
The Addington Childrens Hospital has for long been a point of concern for many Durbanites. Not only does the crumbling landmark detract from the area as a whole, but given the need for hospital space and child focused health services in South Africa, it is tragic that it is not being used as intended.
Image: Chris Bloom
I was asked by a constituent to find out what was happening with the hospital so I approached Real Estate Department at eThekwini Municipality as a first step. This is the response:
The Hospital is located on Portions 22, 23 & 24 of Erf 10054 Durban which were sold and transferred by the erstwhile City Council, together with certain school sites, to the State under a single Deed of Transfer.
These sites were sold subject to the following two terms:
(a) That the land shall be used for educational and hospital purposes only.
(b) That whenever it shall cease to be so used Government shall be entitled to retain the land on payment to the Corporation of an amount representing the value of the land (excluding the value of improvements made by Government) at the time it is sought to be acquired and the amount to be paid by the Government to the Corporation as aforesaid shall be ascertained by arbitration, and should the Government, having ceased to use the land for hospital or educational purposes, fail to retain it and make the necessary payment as hereinbefore provided, the Corporation shall be entitled to re-transfer thereof forthwith.
Various attempts to take re-transfer have been made in the past with Council’s Legal Unit also getting involved.
The MEC of Health, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo has previously announced that the Province has decided to reopen the Addington Children’s Hospital after appropriate renovations.
Since this seems now to be a project* being run by the provincial department of health, I will now follow this issue up with members of the provincial legislature and see what feedback I can get.
* Some interesting links relating to the project:
http://theridgeonline.co.za/r118m-for-addington/
http://www.kznhealth.gov.za/Addington/childhosp1.pdf
September 29th, 2011 at 11:06 am
The Ridge Online article is from July 2010… has anything happened since then?
September 29th, 2011 at 2:42 pm
I am attempting to contact officials in the Provincial Department to this end.
September 30th, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Great.
Please tweet once you’ve heard something.
Also please let me know if any community involvement would be useful.
February 20th, 2012 at 9:34 am
Work has started on site, some demolition has taken place but the official website has no update.
February 21st, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Phase 1 of the re-establishment of the hospital has started with renovation of the old out-patients building which will be operational by the end of 2012. We hope to have info pamphlets and a media release out in the next few days.