Three rival healthcare groups are vying for patients in a race to build private hospitals in East London ? despite shortages of trained staff.

The different groups have tabled plans for hospitals, the most recent being the Port Elizabeth-based hospital group Bophela Basetshana Healthcare.

Their plan to build a 200-bed private hospital in Selborne was boosted this week when a municipal committee recommended that council approve the sale of land to the group.

The group, which is in partnership with Network Healthcare (Netcare 911), envisages a private hospital that includes a pharmacy, wellness centre, physiotherapy rooms, dental surgery and a mini shopping centre.

Last week, property developers Atterbury Cape and Life Healthcare, the company that owns St Dominic's and East London Private Hospital, also announced plans to build new private hospitals in Gonubie and Beacon Bay.

Speaking from Port Elizabeth yesterday, Bophela Basetshana Healthcare's Dr Lindile Soga was confident that East London needed another private hospital. Their focus was on civil servants who belonged to government's new medical aid scheme.

Soga said the state's new medical aid provided for those previously not on schemes because they were at the lower end of the salary scale.

The consortium plans for 100 beds initially but has long-term expansion plans.

"Certainly, it is a massive project that will have 200 beds. It will provide lots of jobs during construction. Once operational, it will create jobs for medical staff and general workers."

Soga said the provincial Health Department had granted the company a licence to run a hospital.

Soga acknowledged that competition in the private healthcare industry would be fierce. But, he said, they were hoping to introduce a number of medical services that were not available at existing institutions.

The proposed site at Clarendon Gardens would also be easily accessible, especially for people using public transport routes.

Soga said the hospital would deal with shortages of nursing staff by employing nurses trained by Netcare 911.

Life Healthcare, the existing leader in private healthcare in East London, boasts the most advanced plans.

Last year, the company announced plans to build a new R100m hospital in Beacon Bay. This week, a spokesperson said the plans were at an advanced stage, with an opening date set for early 2009.

The company said their new 130-bed facility will replace the ageing East London Hospital and give the company a foothold in the city's growing north-eastern suburbs of Beacon Bay and Gonubie.

The plan has initial approval from the Health Department and rezoning of the site is complete.

St Dominic's Hospital manager Sean Hubbard said the group's expansion was partly in response to increasing numbers of patients with access to medical aid.

"These processes take a few years,? he said. ?There has been a gradual increase and we are looking to meet demand."

The third contender is Atterbury Cape, which wants to build a private hospital on a 117-hectare site at the corner of the N2 highway and Gonubie Main Road.

Atterbury is planning a mixed-use development that would include a large regional hospital with a 50000m² shopping mall, a value mart, a motor city, a hotel and a residential estate.

Sivile Mabandla, a spokesperson from the developer's local partner, the Silinga consortium, said negotiations to secure a partner had begun with two national hospital groups.

Mabandla hinted that he may be able to lever his union connections into attracting skilled staff.

Umnombo Investments, of which he is a founding director, has a preferred advisory and co-investment relationship with the country's largest nurses' union, the Democratic Nursing Association of South Africa (Denosa).

The lack of nursing staff was "a major challenge", admitted Hubbard, whose Life group is training 100 people in the area. In addition to the new hospital his company is spending R10m expanding and improving its facilities in central East London.

At St Dominic's, the company is spending R2m on new parking facilities and R7m on expanding the hospital building to house almost 200 beds. Land for a new psychiatric department has also been bought and building is under way.

Former Health MEC Bevan Goqwana said it was not easy to attract specialists to the Eastern Cape, but one way of making salaries more attractive was to allow those working at public hospitals to do private work at private hospitals.

Goqwana said government policy was that if anyone wanted to establish a private hospital in the Eastern Cape, it should be a public-private partnership (PPP) that could benefit the poor. Anyone with the best PPP offer should get the go-ahead, he said.

Daily Dispatch