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Groote Schuur Hospital unveils upgraded liver treatment clinic

Groote Schuur Hospital unveils upgraded liver treatment clinic
CEO of Groote Schuur hospital Dr Shaheen de Vries (left) with Professor Wendy Spearman. The CEO welcomed the upgrades. (Photo: Supplies / Dollie House)
Nkululeko Ndlovu
By Nkululeko Ndlovu
4 Dec 2024
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In collaboration with the Gift of the Givers Foundation, the Elma Foundation and the Western Cape Department of Health, Groote Schuur Hospital has unveiled upgrades to one of South Africa’s most important hepatology centres.

On Tuesday, 3 December, the Groote Schuur Hospital and the staff of this public healthcare centre were elated to open the doors of its upgraded liver clinic, which struggled with aged facilities and slow medical interventions. 

Known as a premier institution of medical training and the site of the world’s first heart transplant performed by South African doctor Christian Barnard, the Cape Town hospital is the only Health Professions Council of South Africa-accredited Clinical Hepatology and Liver Transplant training unit in the country.

groote schuur Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. (Photo: Elise-Marie Tancred)


Wear and tear


The upgrades to the facilities at Groote Schuur include their general liver clinic, porphyria clinic, adult and adolescent liver transplant clinic and the Echo iClinic seminar room and training facility.  

“There is also a new special room here where the staff do not need to biopsy people any more. They don’t need to do invasive procedures,” said Imtiaz Sooliman, founder of Gift of the Givers. 

According to Professor Wendy Spearman – one of the Health Professions Council of South Africa’s accredited hepatologists who spearheaded the request for an upgrade to Gift of the Givers and has been at Groote Schuur since 1977 – the project had been on the agenda “for at least the last 10 years”.

“We did a major upgrade in 1994, and at that stage the clinic was only seeing about 20 patients a day,” said Spearman. “And then over time, it got old.” 

liver clinic Members of Gift of the Givers unveil the upgraded liver clinic facility at the hospital. (Photo: Supplied / Dollie House)



When the Covid-19 pandemic crippled South Africa’s economy, and therefore the state’s capacity to support public infrastructure – including the health budget – it “caused a huge backlog for infrastructure upgrade”, said Sooliman. 

Read more: Young SA doctors struggle to specialise 

This is what sparked Sooliman and his team to travel throughout South Africa to see how they could assist. 

“We came here [Groote Schuur] on a casual visit at the delivery unit to greet a doctor friend of ours. That is when Professor Wendy [Spearman] showed us the facility and said: ‘Look, I have these amount[s] of patients that come through and it is not very good in terms of dignity and privacy for us to work in this space.’” 

Patients from across sub-Saharan Africa


As a highly specialised treatment and academic facility, Groote Schuur is one of the few hospitals in South Africa that can perform liver transplants and medical training for specialist doctors, according to Groote Schuur CEO Dr Shaheen de Vries.  

“We see patients from across not just the province but the country” as well as other sub-Saharan countries, said De Vries. 

“And so having the expertise that we do, and people travelling far distances, you need to have a space that is conducive to seeing patients quickly, and in a way [that is] dignified and caring.”

The hospital’s liver clinic is responsible for providing health care to more than 4,000 patients who visit the facility every year. Previously limited to serving about 20 patients a day, the upgrades mean “the clinic will see 70 to 80 patients per day”, said Spearman. 

De Vries Spearman CEO of Groote Schuur Hospital Dr Shaheen de Vries (left) with Professor Wendy Spearman. The CEO welcomed the upgrades. (Photo: Supplies / Dollie House)



The “4,000 patients that we follow includes our follow-up patients, new patients, porphyria patients – the whole spectrum of liver diseases”, she said. 

With improved capacity and upgraded treatment centres, the renovations at the historic medical centre will allow for the consolidation of the clinic outpatient and training services, according to a press release by Gift of the Givers. 

“It is one of the only peer-to-peer level structures in the country that serves 25 other countries on the continent,” said Sooliman.

“More importantly, consultant specialists come here and train... And even medical registrars come here and train. They have a training room which then upgrades their own skills, and upgrades skills further on the African continent.” DM

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