Servamus · We Serve · Western Cape Government Health & Wellness
24-hr emergencies021 404 9111
Est. 1938 · Observatory, Cape Town
Groote Schuur Hospital is one of Africa's foremost academic hospitals — a place of world firsts, world-class specialists and compassionate care for the people of the Western Cape.
Servamus
We Serve
893
Hospital beds
560 000+
Patient contacts every year
12
World medical firsts
3 600+
Dedicated staff members
3 December 1967
In the early hours of a Sunday morning, Professor Christiaan Barnard and a team of thirty performed the world's first human-to-human heart transplant in the Charles Saint Theatre at Groote Schuur Hospital. That spirit of courage and innovation still drives everything we do — twelve world firsts and counting.
“On Saturday, I was a surgeon in South Africa, very little known. On Monday, I was world renowned.”
Prof. Christiaan Barnard
Cardiac surgeon, Groote Schuur Hospital
Centres of excellence
Academic excellence
As the chief teaching hospital of the University of Cape Town's Faculty of Health Sciences, Groote Schuur is where thousands of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals learn their craft — and where research conducted at the bedside shapes medicine across the continent and beyond.
From the hospital
On 28 July 2026, the multimillion-rand facility opens its doors — bringing 54 acute stretcher spaces and three newly renovated 24-hour trauma and emergency theatres to the people of Cape Town.
Facilities
The Cape Town Interventional Radiology team performs Africa's first public-sector catheter-directed pulmonary embolectomies at Groote Schuur.
World-class care
Groote Schuur becomes the first hospital in the world to eradicate Legionella from its water systems — all 54 storage tanks now certified clear.
Research
Support the hospital
Pioneering world-class healthcare for all.
The Groote Schuur Hospital Trust channels private giving into world-class care — funding emergency surgery, advanced equipment, women's health programmes and medical innovation beyond what state budgets can reach.
Servamus — We Serve
Whether you're a patient, a visitor or a referring clinician — find everything you need to reach us.
