The facility was unveiled by the Northern Cape Department of Health in partnership with construction group, Bigen, in an event held on Monday 13 September. The ceremony was attended by, among others, the provincial health MEC, Mr Maruping Lekwene; executive mayor of the Sol Plaatje Municipality, Patrick Mabilo; and other senior officials from the Department of Health. Lekwene addressed those present and mentioned the importance of increasing capacity in the health sector in the province.

"We’re very quick to build but we don’t maintain and that’s a weakness. It's not broken, it just needs servicing. Unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to service some of the medical equipment,” explains the Health MEC.

This integrated system will allow the hospital to be able to locate patient records more efficiently; record new consultation medical reports digitally; gain access to scanned hard copy files on the system; easily replace traditional patient files with Electronic Health Records (EHR); and back up and secure patient records on the cloud.

OFM News/Benjamin Tshabile