The fact that the world renowned Medical School of the University of Cape Town incorporated the George Hospital as a teaching hospital in 2016, recognises its high standards of health care. George Hospital is the referral centre for the satellite hospitals and clinics throughout the Garden Route District (Southern Cape and the Klein Karoo). It acts as both a regional and district hospital and serves an extensive and growing number of families.
The vision of the famous old George Hospital is to provide the best quality health service that is possible in South Africa and to be the hospital of choice in this South Eastern area of the Cape and Karoo. To this end George Hospital has a Hospital Board, comprised of leading members of the community and the church as well as senior members of a highly focused and dedicated staff, under the management of a Chief Executive Officer, Michael Vonk.
Among the vital services to the community that George, now part of the much larger Garden Route District, provides, is the George Hospital, which is owned by the Western Cape Government and operates in the George Health district of the Southern Cape. In what is known as a Regional Hospital, George Hospital has become the referral centre to all the hospitals in the Southern Cape/Karoo Region. The Garden Route District ,as illustrated on the map, includes the towns situated in the districts outlined below in which a total of more than 750,000 people reside. The initial impetus for the formation and building of the hospital in the early stages came from the flu epidemic of 1918.
The mission of the George Hospital Trust is to raise awareness to the South African and international community of the critical need to grow the hospital facilities, including all the essential services, accommodation and equipment required to meet the growing demand of its residents, together with the necessity to raise funds to cover the development.
The initial fund raising is required to increase the number of wards, starting with the Paediatrics and Neo Natal Wards together with Kangaroo and Mother care and Parents Lodge, for a parent to stay close to her child whilst in the hospital. The advent of a substantial number of patients from other African countries also, together with a growing retirement population in the salubrious surrounds of George itself, has caused a growth of pressure on the hospital at an above average rate.
In meeting these challenges, George Hospital has established itself as a good, credible health care provider, having now close to 500 dedicated competent staff, providing care in 6 major disciplines, of which Paediatrics and Neo Natal Care, are very essential elements. These are squeezed into what are now inadequate and antiquated facilities.