Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital is a tertiary paediatric hospital based in Cape Town, South Africa. The hospital was originally built as a memorial to soldiers lost in the Second World War. Since it first opened its doors in 1956, it has provided specialist care for children from all over South Africa, and continues to receive referrals for tertiary paediatric services from other African countries.
The division of paediatric anaesthesia is extremely busy, with approximately 10,000 anaesthetics performed annually. Training in Paediatric Anaesthesia is offered across many specialties including; cardiothoracics, liver transplantation, burns, neurosurgery, general surgery, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, ENT, urology, plastics and paediatric sedation. In addition, we offer training opportunities for supernumerary fellows from within South Africa and overseas.
The hospital has 8 main operating theatres, a day surgery theatre and a trauma theatre. In addition, the department also provides a service for radiology, cardiology, radiotherapy, chronic pain and additional operating lists at Maitland Cottage, where the majority of elective paediatric orthopaedic surgery is performed.
There are currently 6 paediatric anaesthetists based permanently at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, and in addition there are up to 3 rotating consultants and 7 registrars from the UCT department of anaesthesia.
The Department is one of two MEPA Centres in Africa and holds regular simulation based training workshops in paediatric anaesthesia.