Anticipated Lady Pohamba Hospital 60% complete

Operations at the Lady Pohamba Private Hospital will commence soon. The development at the hospital currently stands at about 60%.
Speaking in an interview with the Economist, Project Manager Willem Botha said completion date will be somewhere towards the second half of the year.

“Thus far we have completed the construction, superstructure and wet works. Currently the construction team is busy with the finishing of the building and we have also started procurement of the hospital equipment so the project is well underway,” he said. Botha said that though construction is progressing well, they have had a few challenges in the past year,   “We have experienced a massive growth in construction in Namibia the past year. This created a shortage of skills and resources. This directly affected our development, and we had some delays due to the transport strike in South Africa. In the construction industry we are very closely linked to South Africa, last year the Steel and transport industries in South Africa went on strike, this was a major hurdle for us to overcome but the construction team handled the pressure very well.”He also said that last week’s heavy rainfall has not affected the construction phase as most of the external work is complete and it’s mostly internal work remaining which cannot be affected by the rain. “Rains are not really affecting our progress, we have done most of the external work so we can’t say that the rain is slowing our progress or that it will slow our progress.”
Botha further stated that the total cost of the project has not been finalized as they have not yet finalized the procurement of the equipment, he did however tell the Economist that the construction budget was set at N$200,000,000 and that they have currently spent 60% of this amount. Lady Pohamba Private Hospital will have a 24-hour Level One Trauma Unit which will treat severely injured patients including people involved in motor vehicle accidents and acts of violence. It will be staffed 24 hours with trauma surgeons, anaesthesiologists, trauma nurses and vital support services. The hospital will not only offer crucial medical and surgical, but also key ancillary services. The medical and surgical disciplines will include amongst others: orthopaedic surgery; ear, nose and throat surgery; gynaecology; obstetrics; neuro surgery; anaesthetics; internal medicine; cardiology; paediatrics; plastic surgery; urology; psychiatry; pulmonology and oncology. The 135 bed hospital forms part of the new mixed-use business node called Hilltop Estate Development which includes the Grove Mall of Namibia, which will feature a new Virgin Active Gym, a High Performance Centre focusing on sports recovery, a hotel, Wild Olive residential apartments and general office space. The entire Hilltop Estate Development is to be completed in 2018 and is expected to create 3 000 permanent jobs after completion.