WATCH Chilling View as Khayelitsha Gets Temporary Hospital to Cope with Expected ‘Spillover’

A temporary Covid-19 hospital has been built in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha with the generosity of Doctors Without Borders/MSF Southern Africa, to handle the spillover of extra patients from Khayelitsha Hospital that are expected over the coming weeks.

In chilling video footage (watch below), filmed by Western Cape amateur film maker Gershwin Christian Williams, the harsh reality of a Covid-19 hospital can be seen. The temporary hospital – which has been set up in a recreation centre – will be able to take an extra 70 patients.

Gershwin – who was involved in the electrical installation – says: “Here are some stark images of what a Covid 19 Hospital Really Looks Like ?”

Gershwin says the “scary thing” is that the Western Cape has over 60% of SA’s coronavirus cases, with Khayelitsha holding the highest proportion – over 1,500 cases – and that the doctors have explained that with people from Khayelitsha travelling all over the Western Cape to work, it means “if the rate of infection increases here (in Khayelitsha), it’s going to increase throughout the Western Cape”. (See latest stats at bottom of article.)

WATCH VIDEO Temporary Covid 19 Hospital Built in Khayelitsha, Cape Town South Africa – Doctors Without Borders

None of your family will be able to visit you

The video includes a serious and sobering message. Gershwin urges South Africans to think twice before going out because you don’t want yourself or your loved ones to end up in a hospital like this “laying next to a complete stranger, none of your family will be able to visit you”, and should someone pass away… their body will be carried outside to a gazebo, set up in a parking lot, where a family member will be called to identify them.

“Would you really want to do that, would you want to stand in the cold parking lot and say: this is my husband or this is my child?” asks Gershwin. “So, really think, sanitise, try not to go out as much as you can. This virus is real.”

Doctors Without Borders Giving to the Cape Town Community

Gershwin told SAPeople that it was an “immense privilege” over the last week to work with Doctors Without Borders. He says it’s an “amazing initiative” in which everything that’s been installed gets donated to the Department of Health, and to centres in Khayelitsha… and that the independently-funded Doctors Without Borders “take nothing back with them. Everything they put into the community stays within the community.”

Latest South African Covid-19 Stats – Wed, 27 May 2020

• 25,937 positive cases in SA, of which 16,551 were recorded in the Western Cape.
• 552 deaths of which 387 were in the Western Cape.
• The Western Cape cases continue to represent over 60% of South Africa’s total covid-19 cases.

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