A region of a million people without a private hospital.
Patients in KwaMhlanga and neighbouring areas who need private acute care travel to Pretoria or Witbank. This is what that costs the region, and why the hospital is being built here.
Who the hospital serves.
Along the R573 Moloto Road corridor
- Thembisile Hani
- Dr JS Moroka
- Elias Motsoaledi
- Spring Life Private Hospital, KwaMhlanga
Destinations off the corridor
- Pretoria, 85 km
- Witbank, 112 km
Schematic, not to scale.
Distance to Pretoria is to the city. The nearest private acute hospitals lie on its northern and eastern edge.
The site sits 4 kilometres off the R573 Moloto Road, a corridor with a well-documented road-safety burden. Local emergency and acute capacity on that route is part of the case for building here.
- 1.04 million
- people in the regional catchment
- Project market study, 2026
- 500 619
- people in the core catchment
- Project market study, 2026
- 3
- local municipalities served
- Project market study, 2026
70 to 75 km
to the nearest private acute hospital.
Distance means transport costs on every admission, follow-up and discharge, family members travelling with the patient or not travelling at all, and a break in continuity of care between a local general practitioner and an admitting hospital in another province.
The patients already exist.
21 general practitioners in Thembisile Hani were interviewed for the market study. Each was asked how many patients they refer to private hospitals in a normal week. Each reported referring six to seven patients a week to private hospitals outside the region.
126
patients referred out of the region every week, from the interviewed practices alone.
The hospital is not forecasting demand that does not exist. It is positioned to keep patients who are already travelling.
Interviews with 21 local general practitioners, 2026
The current provision.
- District-level public hospitals in the municipality
- 1
- Clinics and visiting points
- Distributed across the municipality
- Clinics with 24-hour service
- Limited
- Most clinics in the municipality do not operate 24 hours.
- Nearest provincial referral hospital
- 112 km
- Nearest private acute hospital
- 70 to 75 km
Public services in Thembisile Hani carry the region's acute workload. Spring Life adds private capacity alongside them rather than replacing any part of that provision.
Project market study, 2026
What a hospital brings with it.
01 Acute care available locally
Admissions, theatre and maternity services inside the community.
02 Resident and referring doctors establish nearby
Consulting rooms and supporting services cluster around an admitting hospital.
03 Permanent employment, roughly 400 positions at capacity
Clinical, administrative and support roles filled from the region.
04 A local supply chain
Consumables, catering, laundry, security and maintenance contracted locally.
05 Healthcare spending stays in the region
Money that currently follows patients to Pretoria and Witbank is spent here.
The hospital is a piece of permanent infrastructure, and the region keeps the activity that grows around it.