Cape Town, South Africa

To provide affordable world class quality health care to public and private patients within available resources, as well as excellent educational and research opportunities.

• Officially opened during 1976
• Teaching hospital for the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Stellenbosch
• Annual budget of R770 000 000
• Designed for 1 899 beds, but presently has 1278 active beds, including:
  • 300 bed Tygerberg Children's hospital
  • Day surgery unit
  • Private patients unit
• Other buildings on the premises include the medical faculty, a dental faculty, residences for nurses, students and doctors, a laundry, engineering building, administration building, research facilities, centre for deaf children, training centre and accessory services such as a bank and post office

Over 2 million people receive health care from Tygerberg, either directly or via its secondary hospitals, such as Karl Bremer, Paarl and Eben Donges (Worcester).Annual patient statistics:

• During 2003, 55 446 in-patients were admitted and 588 334 out patients visited the hospital.
• An average of 1006 in-patients per night were in the hospital during 2003.
• Average length of stay: 6,64 days

During the normal working day there are about 10 000 people on our hospital grounds. That includes staff, visitors and students.

There are more than 4000 staff including:

• Nursing: 1715
• Doctors: 536
• Domestic: 673
• Administration: 686

• The hospital caters for all specialities appropriate to a large academic hospital, such as General Surgery and subdisciplines, e.g. orthopaedics, ophthalmology, etc, Internal Medicine and subdisciplines, e.g. cardiology and nephrology, as well as Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
• Tygerberg is the leading health facility in the Western Cape for care of trauma and other acute cases.
• Highly specialised, often nationally unique, services include:


• Cochlear implant programme, which maintains close links with Australia and provides a service to many countries in Africa
• Radiation Oncology service, which also provides intra-operative radiotherapy
• Renal dialysis and transplant
• 24 hour toxicology advice
• Neuropathology Unit: only such unit in Africa to provide in-theatre diagnosis of brain tumour biopsies
• Human Nutrition advice
• Specialised Reproductive Biology Unit which performed the first successful invitro insemination in Africa in 1983
• The Cranio-facial unit
• TygerBear Social Work Unit for Traumatised Children and families
• The only hospital in the country for management of casualties from nuclear accidents
• Only adult burns unit in Cape Town

These services provide for advanced health care to all patients, as well as training of large numbers of doctors (under- and postgraduate) and all other types of clinical staff.

Postal address:
Private Bag X3
Tygerberg
7505
Western Cape
South Africa

Tel: 021-938 5454
Fax: no: 021-938 4890
Email: mmcarste@pgwc.gov.za