This is according to Busamed Chairman and founder, Diliza Mji, who said this at the hospital’s official opening today. While the hospital’s official opening by premier Sisi Ntombela is taking place today, its doors have been technically open since February 5, 2018, with a number of patients already admitted since then. Mji says while the group was looking into expanding its footprint in Bloemfontein, they looked at the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP) which identified potential growth along the N8.

Airports Company South Africa’s (ACSA) Group Executive for infrastructure asset management, Badisa Matshego, echoed Mji’s sentiments, telling OFM News the project is meant to assist the provincial government’s economic strategy in addition to Mangaung Metro’s IDP, “which seeks to amalgamate Bloemfontein with its surrounding urban centres, namely Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu”. Matshego said the airport is ideally located to assist and act as a catalyst in the growth of the N8 corridor.

The N8 corridor has been earmarked as a strategic corridor initiative in the National Development Plan (NDP), something that excited Mji. “I’m excited, even more now to learn from ACSA that the corridor has been identified as a strategic location in terms of the National Development Plan”.

The Cow - computer on wheels - will be used in this paperless hospital.

This is the first airport-based hospital in South Africa and as a result, forms part of Acsa’s development of an aerotropolis on the N8 corridor. Matshego says this is in addition to the already established Road Lodge Hotel and other developments in the pipeline, which include a filling station.

Busamed, which has 110 beds and offers a wide range of specialities such as neurosurgery, trauma and orthopedic surgery, emphasised that neurosurgery is one of their main focus areas, supported by a radiology department with an MRI machine and CT scan. 

The hospital further boasts an emergency centre, four theatres with radiology, maternity, ophthalmology, dermatology and urology facilities with state-of-the-art equipment, as well as a pharmacy. Specialities include general surgery, gynaecology and obstetrics, orthopaedics, paediatrics, neonatology, and ENT surgery.

Mji said the hospital at present does not offer cardiology or cardiothoracic facilities yet, but says they are working on it “even a 1000 km journey begins with a 1st step”.  The hospital at the Bram Fischer International Airport forms part of Busamed’s seven hospitals – some acquired, others built from the ground up - around the country, in under five years.

The maternity ward

OFM News