The specialist care Southern Africa flies abroad for, ninety minutes from Gaborone Airport.
From 2029, the region will be able to reach, in Gaborone, the full range of hospital care and the complex work that stands above it, with mothers and children at the heart of it: high-risk pregnancy, newborn and paediatric intensive care, children's surgery, gynaecological cancer of the cervix, ovaries and womb, cardiac and neurological surgery.
Why the region flies to Gaborone
A family choosing where to be treated weighs the standard of care against the distance and the total cost. TEMCO is planned to answer all three from one campus in Gaborone, ninety minutes from most of the region's capitals and at a fraction of the cost of the long flight abroad.
Accredited-pathway quality
TEMCO is built on the Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditation pathway from day one, the global standard against which clinical quality and patient safety are measured. The same standard governs every ward and every theatre, whether the patient has flown in from Lusaka or driven across Gaborone.
90 minutes from the runway
The hospital stands inside the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport Special Economic Zone, on the direct routes that already connect Gaborone with the region's capitals. By 2029, a patient in Lusaka or Harare who needs a structural-heart procedure will reach that theatre on a ninety-minute flight.
25–35% below SA private rates
Specialist care is planned at 25–35% below South-African private-sector rates, held to the same accreditation standard at every price. One short flight in place of a long one means the whole trip costs less and takes less time, for you and for whoever travels with you.
What you could save
Compare the full cost of treatment
Choose where you are travelling from and the care you are considering. We will show you how TEMCO is planned to compare on cost, on the flight and on the time you spend away from home, at accredited-pathway standards and at rates set 25–35% below South-African private-sector levels. Nothing is quoted as a price until a patient coordinator has read your case.
Oncology — from Lusaka, Zambia
Planned radiation and medical oncology with two linear accelerators, so treatment carries on while one is being serviced, and planning that covers IMRT, VMAT, SBRT and SRS. Breast and gynaecological cancers of the cervix, ovaries and womb are treated here alongside the rest, which for many women decides whether a course of radiotherapy is finished or abandoned in another country.
On cost
Specialist care planned at 25–35% below South-African private-sector rates, on an accredited pathway, about ninety minutes' flying from most of the region. The saving is on the treatment and on everything around it, because a short hop replaces a long haul and the family travels once.
On travel
Gaborone is about ninety minutes in the air from Lusaka, and the hospital is inside the airport zone, so the last stretch is a short drive. A family that would have spent a day reaching Johannesburg or Bengaluru arrives the same morning.
On family & recovery
A room for whoever travels with you is planned minutes from the hospital, so a mother can stay beside her child through the nights that matter and no one is left far from the person they came with. It makes the whole thing one trip and one set of flights, with somewhere quiet to get your strength back before flying home.
Time in the air
The proportions are drawn to scale, using the scheduled direct services into Sir Seretse Khama International Airport. A case treated outside the continent connects through a hub, and the family travels with it.
These are indicative comparisons for planning only. A written cost estimate is prepared on enquiry, once a patient coordinator has reviewed your case with the relevant specialist team. All services described are planned, with operations expected to commence in 2029.
From first enquiry to follow-up from home
Five planned steps, held together by a single point of contact, so that travelling for specialist care takes one trip instead of a series of disconnected ones. Select a step to see what happens at each stage.
Enquiry or referral
You reach out, or the clinician caring for you or your child does, with the diagnosis, any imaging or reports, and where you are travelling from. A patient coordinator reviews the case with the relevant specialist team and tells you plainly whether TEMCO is the right place for the treatment you need. There is no obligation, and what you share stays in confidence.
You speak to a real coordinator who answers your questions, and the decision stays yours.
Getting here is part of the care
Travelling for treatment should not mean travelling alone or unsupported. Direct flights into Gaborone, an airport transfer, guidance on the visa where it is needed, accommodation for your family and a coordinator who stays with your case throughout are all arranged, so you can put your attention on getting well.
- Roughly 90 minutes from the runway
- Airport-to-hospital transfer arranged
- Visa-process guidance where needed
- Family & recovery-hospitality stays nearby
At the airport centre of a region that travels for care
Across Southern Africa, complex specialist cases routinely leave the continent for South Africa, India and beyond. TEMCO sits inside the airport economic zone, on direct routes from the region's capitals, positioned to keep a share of that cross-border flow here, in Gaborone.
Direct-flight catchment
- Johannesburg
- Cape Town
- Lusaka
- Harare
- Addis Ababa
Indicative direct-flight catchment, roughly 90 minutes from Gaborone. Routes are shown qualitatively and the map is not to scale.
A large and growing regional market
Southern Africa's private and cross-border medical-tourism market runs to a substantial scale, a regional inbound opportunity in the low hundreds of millions of US dollars each year, growing steadily. TEMCO is built to earn a share of African cross-border referral flow that today leaves the continent.
Ninety minutes from the region's capitals
Direct flights connect Gaborone with Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lusaka, Harare and Addis Ababa, placing much of the region roughly a 90-minute flight from the hospital, at around half the travel cost of medical tourism to India or beyond.
A loop that brings your patient back
Patients are treated in Gaborone and returned to their home clinician with a clear discharge summary and follow-up plan, so cross-border referral works as a continuous relationship and the region's doctors can refer in with confidence.
Treatment, recovery and the family who travels with you
What draws inbound patients is everything around the operating theatre as much as the theatre itself. Treatment, rehabilitation, recovery hospitality and the family who travels with you are planned as a single arc, so that coming from across the region takes one trip.
Specialist treatment
The procedure itself, delivered across the planned Centres of Excellence to the JCI accreditation pathway.
Planned · Opening 2029Rehabilitation & recovery medicine
Dedicated physiotherapy and post-surgical, post-oncology recovery programmes that carry you beyond the procedure.
Planned · Opening 2029Recovery hospitality & wellness
Airport-adjacent recovery hospitality, cosmetic and aesthetic care, and wellness, somewhere calm to recover before flying home.
Planned · Opening 2029Family close by
Accommodation and support for the companion who travels with you, because recovery is easier with someone familiar near.
Planned · Opening 2029
Indicative design conceptThe family that flew in with the patient waits in a room that was designed for the waiting.
What the region brings, Batswana reach without the plane
A hospital of this size holds two linear accelerators, a hybrid cardiac theatre and a newborn (neonatal) intensive-care unit because it is built for a catchment of the whole of southern Africa. Equipment at that level becomes viable in Gaborone on regional volume, and the theatres, the specialists and the accredited pathway it pays for are the ones a Motswana walks into, with public-referral and medical-aid patients planned for alongside private ones. A mother carrying a difficult pregnancy and a child who needs surgery are treated close to family, and the flight that used to arrive with the diagnosis is no longer part of it.
The work that today means a flight
These are the services TEMCO is planned to add above what the region reaches today. If one of them is the reason you are looking at a hospital abroad, it is the reason this one is being built.
- Two-linac radiation oncology
- Structural-heart intervention
- Complex electrophysiology
- First robotic surgical platform in Botswana
- Complex & neuro-oncology neurosurgery
- PET/CT & nuclear medicine
- Advanced IVF & embryology
- Dialysis at scale
Lifting the bar for healthcare across the region
An accredited-pathway hospital does more than treat its own patients. It builds capacity, trains specialists and sets a standard that lifts the whole sector, so Botswana keeps more of its talent and the region gains a benchmark to refer to.
A specialist training pipeline
Specialists trained and recruited over the operating period, among them neonatologists for newborn babies, paediatric intensivists for children in intensive care, and obstetricians for pregnancy, building a clinical workforce that stays and teaches in Botswana.
Accreditation discipline
Working to the JCI accreditation pathway from the outset brings a measured standard of quality and patient safety, audited against criteria that read the same in Gaborone as they do anywhere else.
Jobs and skills
Hundreds of permanent clinical and support roles at full operation, and thousands of direct and indirect jobs over the decade, anchored at home.
Capability that widens the market
Adding the tier above widens what the country can treat and lifts the standard of Botswana healthcare as a whole, and the gain is shared well beyond our own wards.
Refer the case that would otherwise leave the region
If you care for a patient whose next-tier procedure currently means a flight out of Southern Africa, whether that is a structural-heart case, a gynaecological cancer of the womb or ovaries, or a pregnancy that needs newborn (neonatal) intensive care waiting on the other side of it, TEMCO is a regional alternative within an accredited-pathway setting. Refer clinician-to-clinician; your patient returns to your care.
For the cases that leave the region
TEMCO holds the full range of care a major hospital provides and, above that, the complex work that currently takes patients out of Southern Africa altogether: structural-heart intervention, complex electrophysiology, robotic-assisted surgery, two-linac radiation oncology, high-risk pregnancy care (obstetrics) with newborn and children's intensive care (neonatal and paediatric) behind it, gynaecological cancers of the cervix, ovaries and womb, fertility medicine for women and for men, and children's surgery. Your routine practice stays yours, and the next tier comes home.
Clinician-to-clinician intake
Refer with a structured clinical summary and you will be dealt with directly by the relevant specialist team, with diagnosis, imaging and history reviewed clinician-to-clinician, and a clear answer on whether TEMCO can help and what the pathway looks like.
Your patient returns to you
Cross-border referral is a loop that brings your patient back to you. They are treated and returned to your care with a full discharge summary and a follow-up plan, so continuity of care stays with you.
Register your interest — Opening 2029
TEMCO is in development, with operations planned for 2029. Register your interest now, as a patient considering treatment or as a clinician building a referral pathway, and the coordination team will be in touch as services come online.
The information provided on this page is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare provider. Indicative cost estimates and care plans are provided on enquiry and are not a quotation or a guarantee of treatment. All services described are planned and subject to regulatory approval. TEMCO Specialised General Hospital is expected to commence operations in 2029.