Hillbrow Health Precinct

Since inception the Hillbrow Health Precinct has delivered outstanding health services and health care worker training, developed best practice models and implemented world class research addressing a range of critical health areas, poverty and urban renewal in Johannesburg’s inner city.

It is a model of co-operation, uniting the Gauteng Department of Health, the City of Johannesburg and Wits University represented by Wits RHI together into a unique and effective partnership.

The site is a dense conglomeration of buildings where the Hillbrow Community Health Centre currently provides a fully functioning hospital service.

Five previously derelict buildings have been renovated to house offices, the Shandukani maternity clinic and research site, the Ward 21 youth clinic and research site, two Key Population clinics, several additional research centres and patient treatment clinics, three A Grade Pharmacies, and three laboratories.

Health Care Through the Years

Firmly rooted in the community, the precinct is gradually reversing the decline that has characterised Hillbrow in the last decade, with the restoration of several important heritage buildings and rebuilding them as centres of medical excellence.

The value of the buildings lie not only in the historic styles of their designs but also in their history. Our buildings include the previous nurses residence and medical school and contain Johannesburg’s first operating theatre.  The HHP borders the site of the original Johannesburg General Hospital. At its peak, it represented cutting-edge medical care and was in the same league as other well-known hospitals around the globe.

The precinct has an historical association with countless medical students, doctors and nurses who learned their profession at this teaching hospital. The same applies to the thousands of Johannesburg residents who received medical treatment there over a period of nearly 100 years.

The precinct contains one of the finest collections of historic buildings in Johannesburg. It includes buildings to the west of Hospital Street such as the South African Institute for Medical Research, designed by Herbert Baker and Frank Fleming in 1913, said to be based on Christopher Wren’s designs in Greenwich, London. Close by is the old Wits Medical School designed by A and W Reid and Delbridge in 1920.