When Every Second Counts, Expert Emergency Care is Here
In a medical emergency, severe chest pain, difficulty breathing, heavy bleeding, you need expert care immediately. Botshilu’s 24/7 Emergency and Trauma Unit provides rapid, professional care right here in Soshanguve. Our emergency physicians, trauma surgeons, and specialists are ready around the clock. World-class emergency care is available when you need it most.
Understanding emergency department triage process and waiting times
LEVEL 1
EMERGENCY
Waiting time:
Immediately
Types of patients
- Unresponsive
- Unconscious
- Life threatening
LEVEL 2
VERY URGENT
Waiting time:
15–30 minutes
Types of patients
- Severe pain
- Signs of distress
- Experiencing medical or surgical intervention that can be seen as life threatening
LEVEL 3
URGENT
Waiting time:
30–60 minutes
Types of patients
- Mild pain
- Stable and still need medical attention soon
LEVEL 4
ROUTINE
Waiting time:
60–180 minutes
Types of patients
- Stable
- Request X-rays / blood results
- Request prescription
- Completion of consultation
The triage system can be distressing, especially for parents with a sick child. It is necessary in order to treat each patient fairly.
Our Emergency & Trauma Unit
CALL 10111 IMMEDIATELY for the following conditions:
Cardiac Emergencies
Chest pain or pressure, especially radiating to arm, jaw, or back.
Severe shortness of breath.
Sudden collapse or loss of consciousness.
Irregular or very rapid heartbeat with dizziness.
Stroke Symptoms (Act FAST)
Face drooping on one side.
Arm weakness (can’t raise both arms equally).
Speech difficulty (slurred or incomprehensible).
Time to call 10111 immediately
Breathing Emergencies
Severe difficulty breathing.
Choking.
Blue lips or face.
Severe allergic reaction (anaphylaxis) with throat swelling.
Severe Trauma
Major injuries from vehicle accidents.
Severe bleeding that won’t stop with pressure.
Broken bones with bone protruding through the skin.
Head injuries with loss of consciousness.
Severe burns covering large body areas.
Injuries to neck or spine.
Neurological Emergencies
Seizures (especially first-time or prolonged).
Sudden severe headache (worst of your life.
Sudden confusion or altered consciousness.
Paralysis or severe weakness.
Severe Abdominal Problems
Severe abdominal pain (especially if pregnant).
Vomiting or coughing up blood.
Signs of severe dehydration (especially in babies and elderly).
Other Critical Conditions
Suspected poisoning or overdose.
Severe injuries from assault or violence.
Severe eye injuries.
Complications from pregnancy (bleeding, severe pain.)
Come Directly to Our Emergency Department for
Moderate Injuries
Fractures or suspected broken bones (painful, swollen, can’t bear weight).
Deep cuts requiring stitches.
Moderate burns.
Sprained joints with severe swelling.
Infection Concerns
High fever with severe illness symptoms.
Severe pain from infection (tooth abscess, skin infection).
Suspected meningitis.
Severe Pain
Severe pain not controlled by normal pain medication.
Sudden severe back pain.
Testicular pain.
Severe migraine.
Children's Emergencies
High fever in infants under 3 months.
Persistent vomiting and diarrhoea leading to dehydration.
Severe earache with fever.
Difficulty breathing in children.
Neurological Emergencies
Seizures (especially first-time or prolonged).
Sudden severe headache (worst of your life.
Sudden confusion or altered consciousness.
Paralysis or severe weakness.
Severe Abdominal Problems
Severe abdominal pain (especially if pregnant).
Vomiting or coughing up blood.
Signs of severe dehydration (especially in babies and elderly).
Other Critical Conditions
Suspected poisoning or overdose.
Severe injuries from assault or violence.
Severe eye injuries.
Complications from pregnancy (bleeding, severe pain.)
Common Emergency Conditions We Treat
Our emergency department manages the full spectrum of medical emergencies and trauma.
Cardiac Emergencies
Heart attacks require immediate treatment to restore blood flow to heart muscle. Our emergency team can administer clot-busting medications, provide emergency cardiac support, stabilise patients for transfer to cardiac catheterisation if needed (we coordinate with cardiology centres), and manage heart failure, dangerous heart rhythms, and cardiac arrest.
Stroke
Stroke is a brain attack requiring the same urgency as heart attacks. Brain tissue dies rapidly without blood flow. We can assess stroke patients using CT scanning, administer clot-busting therapy if appropriate (within crucial time windows), stabilise patients, prevent complications, and coordinate specialist neurology care.
Respiratory Emergencies
Severe asthma attacks, pneumonia with breathing failure, pulmonary embolism (blood clot in lungs), chronic lung disease exacerbations, and allergic reactions causing throat swelling all threaten life through oxygen deprivation. We can provide supplemental oxygen, breathing treatments, medications to open airways, ventilator support if you can’t breathe effectively, and intensive monitoring until breathing stabilises.
Severe Infections
Sepsis (overwhelming infection affecting whole body) is life-threatening, requiring immediate antibiotics, intravenous fluids, blood pressure support, and intensive care. We can recognise sepsis early, provide aggressive treatment, monitor closely, and prevent organ failure.
Diabetic Emergencies
Severely high blood sugar (diabetic ketoacidosis) or dangerously low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia) both require urgent treatment. We can rapidly check blood sugar levels, provide insulin or glucose as appropriate, correct dangerous chemical imbalances, and stabilise diabetic patients.
Severe Trauma from Accidents
Vehicle accidents cause complex injuries, broken bones, internal bleeding, head trauma, chest injuries. We can manage multiple injuries simultaneously, stabilise bleeding, set fractures, assess internal injuries with CT scanning, and perform emergency surgery when internal bleeding or organ damage requires it.
Penetrating Trauma
Stab wounds and gunshot wounds can cause life-threatening bleeding and organ damage. We can rapidly assess injury extent, control bleeding, perform emergency surgery to repair damaged organs, manage chest injuries, and provide intensive post-operative care.
Burns
Severe burns require specialised care for fluid resuscitation, pain management, wound care, and preventing infection and shock. We can stabilise burn patients and coordinate transfer to specialist burn units when needed for extensive burns.
Fractures and Dislocations
Our emergency orthopaedic team manages broken bones, dislocated joints, crush injuries, and severe sprains. We can set fractures, reduce dislocations, splint injuries, provide pain control, and arrange orthopaedic surgery when needed.
Abdominal Emergencies
Appendicitis, ruptured ectopic pregnancy, perforated ulcers, bowel obstruction, and other abdominal emergencies often require emergency surgery. We can diagnose using examination, blood tests, and imaging, provide pain control, perform emergency surgery, and manage post-operative care.
Obstetric Emergencies
Severe bleeding during pregnancy, eclampsia (dangerous high blood pressure in pregnancy), premature labour, and placental problems threaten both mother and baby. We can stabilise pregnant women, provide emergency obstetric care, perform emergency caesarean sections, and manage complications.
Paediatric Emergencies
Children experience unique emergencies, severe asthma, croup, febrile seizures, dehydration from gastroenteritis, injuries from falls. Our team is trained in paediatric emergency care, with appropriately sized equipment and medications, experience managing frightened children, and ability to involve parents in care.
Head Injuries
Concussions, skull fractures, and brain bleeds require urgent assessment. We can perform CT scans of the brain, assess severity, provide neurological monitoring, and coordinate neurosurgical intervention when needed.
Poisoning and Overdose
Accidental poisoning (children ingesting household products, medication mix-ups) or intentional overdoses require rapid intervention. We can identify the substance if possible, provide antidotes when available, support organ function while the body clears poison, and provide psychiatric assessment for intentional overdoses.
Allergic Reactions
Anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction) can kill within minutes through throat swelling or circulatory collapse. We can administer life-saving adrenaline, provide breathing support, give antihistamines and steroids, and monitor until reaction resolves.
Eye Emergencies
Sudden vision loss, severe eye injuries, chemical exposure to eyes, and foreign objects embedded in eyes require urgent care to prevent permanent vision loss. We can provide emergency eye irrigation, remove foreign objects, patch injuries, and arrange ophthalmology consultation.
Dental Emergencies
Severe toothache, dental abscesses, knocked-out teeth, and broken teeth causing severe pain are appropriately treated in emergency settings. We can provide pain control, antibiotics for infections, and emergency dental consultation.
When Emergency Strikes
For Life-Threatening Emergencies:
- Call 10111 or 10177 immediately
- Follow dispatcher instructions while waiting for ambulance
- Then call Botshilu Emergency: 012 798 7076 to alert us you’re coming
- Have someone drive you if ambulance response is delayed and you’re stable enough to be moved safely, never drive yourself if you’re experiencing chest pain, severe shortness of breath, altered consciousness, or other symptoms that might worsen while driving
For Urgent But Not Immediately Life-Threatening Situations:
- Call Botshilu Emergency Department: 012 798 7076 for advice if uncertain whether to come in
- If advised to come, come immediately, don’t wait
- Bring medical aid card, ID, and current medications if possible
- Bring someone with you who can provide information if you’re too ill to communicate clearly
What to Tell Emergency Dispatchers or Our Staff:
- Your location
- What’s wrong (symptoms, injury details)
- Patient’s age
- Whether patient is conscious and breathing
- Any known medical conditions
- Any medications taken
While Waiting for Help:
- Stay calm (panic worsens most emergencies)
- For severe bleeding: apply firm direct pressure with clean cloth
- For suspected heart attack: have patient sit quietly, give aspirin if available and not allergic
- For choking: perform Heimlich manoeuvre if trained
- For seizures: protect person from injury, time the seizure, don’t restrain or put anything in mouth
- For burns: cool with running water for 20 minutes
- For snake bites: keep limb still, remove jewellery, don’t try to catch or kill snake
Never:
- Give unconscious person anything to drink
- Move someone with suspected spine injury
- Try to remove objects impaled in body
- Induce vomiting unless specifically instructed by poison control
You're Not Alone
Medical emergencies are among life’s most frightening experiences. Suddenly your body isn’t working properly, pain is overwhelming, you can’t breathe, you’re bleeding, or someone you love is in crisis. Fear, confusion, and panic are natural responses.
But you’re not alone. Our emergency team has trained for years specifically for these moments. We’ve managed hundreds of emergencies just like yours. We know what to do. We have the equipment, expertise, and experience to help you.
When you arrive at our emergency department, whether brought by ambulance, driven by family, or walking in yourself, you’re entering a place designed for one purpose: keeping people alive and getting them through medical crises.
It might be chaotic. It might be frightening. You might not understand everything happening. But every intervention, every test, every decision is focused on your wellbeing and survival.
We can’t promise perfect outcomes, medicine isn’t magic, and some conditions are too severe despite our best efforts. But we can promise this: we’ll do everything in our power, using every resource available, drawing on all our training and experience, to give you the best possible chance of survival and recovery.
Your emergency is our priority. Your life matters. And when every second counts, we’re here, ready, 24/7.
What Constitutes a True Emergency?
We understand it’s not always clear-cut. If you’re genuinely uncertain whether you have an emergency, err on the side of caution, call 10111 for guidance or come to our emergency department. We’d rather check and send you home reassured than have you delay when you truly need emergency care.
These are NOT Emergencies (See Your GP Instead):
- Minor coughs and colds
- Minor cuts and grazes
- Mild fever without other concerning symptoms
- Prescription refills
- Rashes without other symptoms
- Chronic problems you’ve had for weeks
- Minor aches and pains
Our Emergency Team
When you arrive at our emergency department, you’re cared for by a coordinated team of specialists working together to save your life.
Emergency Nurses
Emergency Nurses are specially trained in trauma and emergency care. They’re not regular ward nurses temporarily assigned to emergency, they’re specialists in emergency nursing who can rapidly assess patient acuity, perform life-saving interventions, assist with emergency procedures, administer emergency medications, and provide critical care monitoring.
Specialists on Call
Our specialists are on call on a roster basis to provide expert input when needed, cardiologists for heart attacks, orthopaedic surgeons for complex fractures, neurosurgeons for head injuries, obstetricians for pregnancy emergencies. Whatever specialist expertise your emergency requires, we can access it rapidly.
Radiology and Laboratory Services
Our Radiology and Laboratory Department provide 24/7 diagnostic support, emergency X-rays, CT scans, and urgent blood tests requested by our Emergency and Trauma Unit.
Why Choose Local Emergency Care
Time Saves Lives
In heart attacks, strokes, severe bleeding, and trauma, every minute without treatment increases the risk of permanent damage. The phrase “time is tissue” means brain cells die during strokes, heart muscle dies during heart attacks, and blood loss from injuries kills. Proximity matters enormously in these situations.
Travelling long distances for emergency care can waste 30-40 minutes before treatment even begins. In that time:
- A heart attack patient might die or suffer permanent heart damage
- A stroke patient might lose brain function permanently
- A trauma patient might bleed to death
- A respiratory failure patient might suffer brain damage from oxygen deprivation
Choosing the closest appropriate emergency facility, which is Botshilu for our community, saves these precious minutes.
What to Expect:
Your visit to the Emergency & Trauma Unit
When You Arrive
Triage:
You’ll be assessed immediately by an emergency nurse using a triage system that prioritises patients by severity, not arrival order. Life-threatening emergencies (resuscitation/red) are seen immediately. Emergencies requiring urgent attention (orange) are seen within 15 – 30 minutes. Urgent but stable cases (yellow) are seen within 30 – 60 minutes. Less urgent cases (green) may wait longer as critical patients take priority.
This might mean someone arriving after you is seen first, this isn’t unfair; it’s appropriate medical prioritisation. If you’re stable enough to wait, that’s actually good news about your condition.
Reception Staff
- Inform the triage nurse of the patient’s arrival.
- Assist patients or family members with the admission process and the opening of patient files.
- Accurately capture and record patient demographic information.
- Verify medical aid details, financial information, and any required supporting documentation.
Initial Assessment:
Once called, an emergency doctor or nurse will take your vital signs (blood pressure, pulse, temperature, oxygen levels), briefly assess your condition, begin immediate life-saving treatment if needed, order necessary tests, and start investigating your problem.
Investigations:
Depending on your condition, you might need blood tests drawn and sent to the laboratory, X-rays or CT scans, ECG (heart tracing), ultrasound, urine test or other diagnostic tests. Some results are available within 30 – 60 minutes; others might take longer.
Treatment:
Once your condition is diagnosed, treatment begins. This might include medications administered intravenously, procedures (stitching wounds, setting fractures, draining abscesses), emergency surgery if required, or stabilisation and specialist consultation for complex problems.
Disposition:
After emergency treatment, you’ll either be discharged to return home with instructions and medications, admitted to hospital for ongoing care, transferred to a specialist facility if you need care beyond our capability, or kept in the Emergency and Trauma Unit for observation before a final decision.
For Severe Trauma
If you arrive with major trauma (severe accident, gunshot wound, serious assault), our trauma protocol activates. The trauma team assembles within minutes including emergency nurses, specialists on call, radiology for immediate imaging, and laboratory services for laboratory urgent bloodwork. You’ll be rapidly assessed using systematic trauma evaluation (ABCDE: Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability, Exposure), receive simultaneous interventions (IV lines, oxygen, bleeding control, pain medication), immediate imaging if stable enough (X-rays, CT scan), and emergency surgery if internal injuries or bleeding require it.
Trauma care is organised chaos, multiple people working on you simultaneously, rapid-fire decisions, urgent interventions. It’s frightening if you’re conscious, but this coordinated urgency is what saves lives.
What About Waiting Times?
If your condition isn’t immediately life-threatening, you might wait, sometimes several hours during busy periods. A busy Emergency and Trauma Unit reflects communities’ emergency needs. We apologise for waits, but we won’t compromise appropriate prioritisation.
What to Bring to Emergency
In genuine emergencies, obviously getting to hospital matters more than gathering items. But if possible, bring:
- Your medical aid card and ID book/card
- List of current medications or the medication containers themselves
- Any relevant medical records if you have them handy
- Phone charger
- Someone to stay with you if possible
Don’t delay leaving for the hospital to gather items, arrive first, someone can bring items later.
After Emergency Care
If you’re discharged from our Emergency and Trauma Unit to go home, you’ll receive clear instructions about medications prescribed, wound care if you have injuries, symptoms that should prompt immediate return to emergency, follow-up appointments with specialists if needed, and activity restrictions.
Critical: Follow these discharge instructions carefully
Many people return to the Emergency and Trauma Unit because they didn’t follow instructions, stopped medications too early, or ignored warning signs of complications. If you’re uncertain about anything in your discharge instructions, ask before leaving. If problems arise after discharge, call our Emergency and Trauma Unit for advice, we prefer answering questions to seeing you return with preventable complications.
If you’re admitted to hospital after emergency treatment, you’ll transition to inpatient care under the appropriate specialist, depending on your condition. The emergency doctor will transfer your care to the specialist best equipped to manage your condition and continue your treatment.
Preventing Emergencies
While some emergencies are unpredictable, many are preventable or their severity reducible through awareness and preparation.
Most heart attacks and strokes occur in people with poorly controlled high blood pressure, diabetes, or high cholesterol. Regular GP care, medication compliance, and lifestyle modifications prevent many of these emergencies
Falls, poisonings, and burns disproportionately affect children and elderly. Childproofing homes, removing fall hazards for elderly, and safely storing medications and cleaning products prevent many emergencies.
Vehicle accidents are major trauma causes. Seatbelt use, child car seats, defensive driving, avoiding drunk driving, and obeying speed limits save lives.
Bystander CPR before ambulance arrival doubles survival from cardiac arrest. Consider taking a basic CPR course, you might save a life.
Know stroke symptoms (FAST), heart attack symptoms (chest pain, severe shortness of breath), and anaphylaxis symptoms (throat swelling, difficulty breathing after allergen exposure). Early recognition means earlier treatment and better outcomes.
Program 10111, 10177, and our emergency number (012 798 7076) into your phone. In a crisis, you won't remember numbers, having them readily accessible saves crucial time.
Take medications exactly as prescribed. Medication errors cause many emergency presentations. Keep updated medication lists, use pill organisers if managing multiple medications, and ask your pharmacist about potential interactions.
If you have serious health conditions (heart disease, severe allergies, diabetes), have an emergency plan. Family members should know what to do if you collapse, where medications are located, and what to tell emergency responders.