Red Cross unveils world-class facility

The Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital has opened a R125-million state-of-the-art Operating Theatre Complex, which is set to provide the hospital's young patients with some of the best facilities and care in the Southern African region.

The 4 600m² facility includes eight fully equipped operating theatres, three of them digitalised. The new digitalised installation is the first of its kind and sophistication in sub-Saharan Africa, and is technically on par with the most advanced installations in the US and Europe, said a statement from the hospital.

Each operating theatre is designated to a sub-speciality: emergency and septic orthopaedics, burns, neurosurgery and spinal orthopaedics, general endoscopic, urology and plastics cardiac, ophthalmology and an ear, nose and throat and scopes theatre. The new digitalised operating theatres, together with a modern digitalised lecture facility, will form part of a multidisciplinary training hub that will assist other African nations to develop and improve their paediatric surgical skills.

"The superb audio visual equipment installed in three of the new theatres will mean that we can share what we do with our colleagues in South Africa, Africa and around the world," said Alistair Millar, Charles FM Saint professor of paediatric surgery at the hospital. "We are able to both teach and learn so that we can improve care for children requiring surgery."

The complex also includes a dedicated cardiac catheterisation laboratory, a central processing department, an anaesthetic suit and a pain management unit.