Cape Town's Groote Schuur hospital was coping despite a work stoppage by about 200 doctors and pharmacists, chief operational officer Dr Saadiq Kariem said on Monday.

He said the staffers constituted about a fifth of the hospital's complement in those two professional categories.

They had held a protest in Main Road below the hospital on Monday morning before going into a meeting.

"We are hoping that in an hour or two they will indicate if they will continue the strike or come back to work," Kariem said.

The hospital had so far not had to postpone any operations, and all "critical areas", such as emergency admissions, were functioning fully.

"We are managing so far," he said.

The hospital had begun preparing on Friday by discharging non-emergency patients.

A handful of doctors at the hospital joined the national doctors' strike on Friday, the first Western Cape medics to take part.