Middelburg — It’s quite perplexing that the government would finalise construction of a public hospital without considering the essential infrastructure that would provide easy access for the community: a road.
The recently opened King Nyabela Hospital serves as a prime example of this flawed approach to planning and prioritisation.
Just under a month ago, the provincial Department of Health announced that the move of services from the old Middelburg Hospital to the brand-new King Nyabela Hospital had been completed smoothly.
The relocations commenced on 30 October 2025 to 19 November 2025, with all services reportedly transferred to the new facility. However, an intriguing question lingers: how were the services relocated to the new facility when plans for the access road were implemented only after the move had taken place? Or perhaps, how did the powers that be think the public will access healthcare services without a proper road?
Construction of the 220-bed hospital started in 2018, aiming to replace the aging and rundown Middelburg provincial hospital, which was no longer able to adequately serve the needs of the Middelburg community.
Strategically situated between the N4 road and the Middelburg mall, this new hospital was initially slated for completion in early 2020. Unfortunately, that timeline proved elusive, hindered by various challenges including revisions from approved variation orders and legal hurdles.
In April this year, the joint Portfolio Committee on Public Works, Roads and Transport, alongside the Health Portfolio Committee, conducted an oversight inspection visit at the hospital. Among the various issues raised was the access road.
During a visit to the hospital, we noticed a grader busily leveling what appeared to be a new road carved out of the open space behind the mall — just eight days after the relocation efforts concluded. To clear up any uncertainties, we reached out to the public works department to confirm whether the operations of the ominous yellow machine had anything to do with the access road.
Bongani Dhlamini, the department’s spokesperson, promptly confirmed.
“It gets really challenging when it rains because the path turns muddy, making it tough to drive through,” shared a taxi driver who wished to remain anonymous, as he isn’t an official representative for either of the taxi associations in Middelburg.
Martha Mtsweni (65), told the paper she does not understand why the powers that be could not build the road before completion of the hospital. “Look now older people like us have to walk all the way through the mud to the new hospital,” she said.
Dhlamini further informed us that this R9,6 million project kicked off on 9 May 2025, and is on track to be completed by 19 December 2025.
In addition, Dhlamini pointed out that this initiative has generated 22 job opportunities and has allocated R2,65 million to local small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs).
However, our main curiosity lies in why the project ended with the access road. “It was supposed to be constructed by the municipality,” he explained. “And when the request was made to the province in 2024, the budget could only be available in the current financial year 2025/26, after the hospital was built.”
Caption: Community members are struggling to reach the new hospital after its completion due to the lack of an access road. According to the department, the Steve Tshwete municipality was responsible for building it.
