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In an effort to make Gauteng a baby friendly province, Chris Hani Academic Hospital officially opened a newly built and upgraded Paediatric Oncology wards on Friday, 26 October 2012.
The two wards with 47 beds caters for children with different cancers from the age of zero to nineteen years. This unit provides professional healthcare services such as counseling, chemotherapy, blood and blood product transfusion.

The Paediatric Oncology Unit provides services for children transferred from neighboring hospitals as well outside the province.

In addition to the wards, the province has other initiatives to make Gauteng baby friendly. These include opening of an additional Kangaroo Mother Care Unit at Tshwane District Hospital and ensuring that three out of every four new mothers were visited at home within six days of delivery.

In the previous financial year, approximately eight out of 10 pregnant women (80.5%) who were HIV-positive were placed on long-term Anti- Retroviral Therapy as they were severely immuno-compromised. Although this is primarily intended to treat the mother, it also effectively prevents transmission of HIV to the baby.

In Gauteng we achieved 99% coverage of babies who are born of HIV positive mothers. Only 3.6% of babies born to HIV positive mothers proved to be HIV infected when tested at the age of six weeks, a rate which is below the national target of 5%.

The department’s exclusive breastfeeding campaign is also assisting in increasing the number of healthy babies.

Immunisation is another critical intervention aimed at increasing child survival by eliminating deaths from preventable causes.

Immunisation services are provided daily by all clinics and some hospitals in Gauteng. Coverage of children under five years has consistently been above the national target of 90% of all children in the age group.

The percentage of children under one year who were fully immunised was 115.1% in the last financial year.