SA's most expensive mental health hospital: With a price tag estimated at R2 billion, Kimberley Mental Health Hospital in the Northern Cape has certainly left a big hole in taxpayers’ pockets but it is still running at less than half of its full capacity
Seven kilometres from Kimberley’s famous Big Hole sits another of the mining city’s record-breaking landmarks: South Africa’s most expensive mental health hospital.With a price tag estimated at R2 billion, Kimberley Mental Health Hospital in the Northern Cape has certainly left a big hole in taxpayers’ pockets.For long periods, the building site perched derelict and ghostly on the city’s fringes, with vandals and weather conditions destroying existing structures.
At the hospital’s glass-encased administration wing, chief executive officer Albert Links, acting nursing service manager Victoria Nero and assistant director of security Clement Kaotsane welcome us inside. “So, the money spent, that which you are referring to now,” says Links, “it was the infrastructural spend for the building. Now that the hospital infrastructure is eventually done and has been officially launched by the premier, we need to operationalise it in terms of getting services running.”And the corruption allegations?“All we can say is that there was alleged corruption and that it is currently before an investigation.
The spacious room has a mattress on the floor, a window to the outside, a window looking out on to a communal area, a loo and a washbasin.
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