Triage Day Hospital

Care that stays on the same street as you.

A day hospital and a 24-hour casualty on Courtenay Street, George. Six consulting rooms, eight practitioners, and a door that has not been locked since 2004.

Find a doctor

What walking in here gets you

Four things we will say out loud. The hours table and the after-hours number are further down the page.

Seen the same day

Phone before ten and you get a slot before six. Walk in without phoning and you will wait, but you will be seen — nobody is sent home to try again tomorrow.

One doctor who knows you

You are booked with a name, not a rota. If Dr Mabaso started your blood pressure script, she is the one who reviews it, and she has the whole file in front of her.

Casualty never closes

A doctor and two nurses are on duty every hour of every day, Christmas included. The casualty entrance is on the Meade Street side and it stays lit all night.

Eight practitioners, one building

GP, paediatrics, emergency, radiology, physio, anaesthetics. A referral here usually means walking down a passage, not driving to Mossel Bay and waiting three weeks.

Six rooms, one building.

behind the door

Twenty-two years on the same street.

We opened in 2004 in what had been a dentist’s rooms: two consulting rooms, a kettle, and an X-ray machine that had to warm up first. The building grew a room at a time as the money came in — the procedure room in 2009, the recovery bay in 2013, physio in the old garage in 2017, the casualty entrance on the Meade Street side in 2019. No architect planned any of it. Each room was added the year we could no longer cope without it. Most of the people who work here live within ten minutes of the front door: Heatherlands, Blanco, Pacaltsdorp, Rosemoor. That is not a hiring policy, it is just what happens when you employ people from the town you are in. It also means that when the casualty phone rings at two in the morning, somebody can actually get here. Every file is on the computer and every file is also on paper. George loses power often enough that we stopped pretending otherwise, so the day’s bookings, the scripts and the allergy list are printed each morning and kept in the cabinet behind reception. It has saved us more than once.

They phoned me the next morning to ask how the coughing went overnight. Nobody has ever done that.
Nomsa Dlamini, Blanco

What brings people in

Most days it is the ordinary things: a chest that will not clear, a child with a fever that has run three nights, a back that gave in on the loading bay, a script that ran out over the weekend. None of it is too small to book for.

What we cannot do is take people in the order they arrived. A crushing chest pain, a bad asthma attack or a child who has stopped drinking goes ahead of a sore throat every time, no matter who sat down first. Sister Booysen makes that call at the front desk and she does not negotiate it.

If something needs a theatre bed overnight, or a specialist we do not have, we phone George Regional ourselves and hand over properly — with the file, the bloods and the images.

Consulting hours

Mon – Thu

07:00 – 18:00

Friday

07:00 – 17:00

Saturday

08:00 – 13:00

Sunday

Closed

Public holidays

Closed

Casualty

Open every hour

The people on shift.

the roster

Dr Anele Mabaso
Dr Anele MabasoFamily medicine

Here since 2007 and the doctor most of our older patients ask for by name. Runs the chronic clinic on Tuesdays — blood pressure, diabetes, thyroid — and will keep you twenty minutes longer if the numbers are not behaving.

Dr Riaan de Wet
Dr Riaan de WetGeneral practice

Grew up in Great Brak River and trained at Stellenbosch. Takes the walk-in list most mornings, which means he has stitched more Saturday-afternoon rugby than anyone else in the building.

Dr Farhana Ismail
Dr Farhana IsmailPaediatrics

Sees children only, and keeps the last two slots of every afternoon open for babies under one. If your child has been unwell three nights running, phone reception and say so — those slots exist for exactly that.

Dr Sipho Ngwenya
Dr Sipho NgwenyaEmergency medicine

Runs casualty and writes the night roster. Six years in the trauma unit in Gqeberha before he came home, and he is the reason we can hold a badly hurt patient here while the ambulance is still on the N2.

Sr Marlene Booysen
Sr Marlene BooysenNursing sister in charge

Thirty-one years in nursing and the person who decides who goes in first. She does the triage at the front desk herself between seven and one, and she will tell you plainly why somebody who came in after you went ahead.

Dr Thabo Molefe
Dr Thabo MolefeRadiology · X-ray and ultrasound

Reads on site, so a chest film taken at nine is usually reported by eleven. Does the pregnancy scans on Wednesdays and Fridays and will print you a picture without being asked.

Kirsten Adams
Kirsten AdamsPhysiotherapy

Works out of the old garage at the back, which is a proper gym now. Post-surgery knees and shoulders, the long-running lower backs, and the fishermen from Herolds Bay who will not stop lifting.

Dr Yusuf Patel
Dr Yusuf PatelAnaesthetics · day theatre

In theatre on Mondays and Thursdays for the day-case lists: grommets, hernias, scopes, hand work. He phones every patient himself the night before, which is not standard practice and we are not changing it.

Book an appointment

Reception opens the diary at 07:00 on 044 874 2210. Casualty needs no booking at all — the Meade Street door is open.

Book online

Before you come in

Do I need a referral to see one of your doctors?

No. Anyone can book with any of the GPs directly. Physio, the day theatre lists and some of the scans do need a doctor to send you, and when that doctor is one of ours the paperwork is done here rather than sent to you to fetch.

Which medical aids do you take?

We bill Discovery, Momentum, Bonitas, Medihelp, Bestmed, Polmed and GEMS directly. On anything else you pay on the day and we hand you a claim-ready invoice before you leave. Casualty is billed at the emergency rate, which most plans pay from risk rather than from savings.

What must I bring?

Your ID, your medical aid card, and the actual boxes of everything you are taking — not a list from memory. If you have had bloods or scans done anywhere else in the past year, bring those too, a photo on your phone is fine.

How long will I wait?

A booked appointment normally runs within twenty minutes of its time. A walk-in on a Monday morning can be two hours. In casualty you are seen in order of how sick you are, so somebody who arrived after you may well go in first.

Do you see children?

Yes, and Dr Ismail sees nothing else. Under-ones get the last two slots of every afternoon. In casualty a child under two is triaged straight through, day or night, no matter how full the room is.

What happens after hours?

Casualty is staffed by a doctor and two nurses every hour of the year, including Christmas and New Year. Come to the Meade Street entrance rather than the main reception door — the front is locked from six in the evening.

Book a room and a name

Reception takes bookings from 07:00 on 044 874 2210. After hours, phone casualty direct on 044 874 2211 or come to the Meade Street door — no booking needed.