Facilities
| Article Index |
|---|
| Facilities |
| Facilities (Part II) |
| All Pages |
In 2002 the PHRU left its small space in the hospital's maternity department and moved to a new research unit in the New Nurses Home. Dr Reg Broekmann, who was then the hospital's chief executive, and the Gauteng health department agreed to provide the space.
The new unit was officially opened by Gauteng's MEC for health, Gwen Ramokgopa, and the archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane.
PHRU is a world class research centre and has been recently renovated and extended. The clinic now has separate paediatric section. The main clinic comprises a reception area, two waiting areas, 11 consulting rooms, one phlebotomy room, three counselling rooms and a children’s play therapy area.
The paediatric section has seven consulting rooms, a phlebotomy room, an immunisation room and two counselling rooms.
All examination rooms are equipped with examination couches, diagnostic and essential equipment. A fully equipped emergency cart, with defibrillator and oxygen is maintained in the clinic.
The clinic now has over 5,000 patient visits monthly.
The PHRU pharmacy is registered with the South African Pharmacy Council and licensed by the Department of Health, under the ownership and responsibility of Fatima Mayat.
It is subject to the conditions of Good Clinical Practice and conforms to the South African Medicines and Related Substances Act.
The PHRU laboratory is a non-automated, diagnostic laboratory offering rapid point-of-care (including HIV, urine pregnancy and urine chemistries tests), and selected assays for genital tract or sexually transmitted infections (RPR/TPHA, KOH preparations, and vaginal swab microscopy).
The laboratory follows the stringent rules enforced by the South African National Accreditation Society (SANAS).
The laboratory infrastructure consists of a receiving area for specimens, an open plan office seating six, a separate two person office, a serology laboratory, a PBMC extraction and preparation lab, and three PCR rooms (sample preparation, extraction and amplification).
In addition there is a laboratory kit preparation and autoclave area and a small repository of three -70°C freezers and one -20°C freezer.
The Prevention Studies area includes the Tshwarisanang Couple counselling centre, extensive counselling, consulting and research areas for the MIRA study and the HIV AIDS Vaccine Centre where voluntary counselling and testing and HIV vaccine trials take place.
Areas have been renovated to house HIVSA which provides psychosocial support activities including support groups, food garden training, a “spaza” shop and a kitchen supplying refreshments for staff and clients of the unit.
The training centre includes a newly renovated 160-seater, raked auditorium, a fully equipped 40-seater boardroom, and one large and two small training rooms.
On the first floor, space has been renovated to house the staff of Project Accept, a large project investigating community-based HIV counselling and testing.
The PHRU also has four floors of office space for administrative and research staff, the statistics centre and its state-of-the-art data-processing equipment.