Cape Town - The national Health Department is working to see if hospitals across the country could be exempted from Eskom’s power cuts.
The department said the increasing stages of load shedding had affected the provision of health-care services across the country, thus necessitating the move.
Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla has since engaged with the public enterprises minister, Eskom and municipalities on processes to be followed in order to exempt health facilities from load shedding.
A report on the impact of load shedding and intervention measures will be provided during a media briefing scheduled for Friday.
Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo supported the exemption of hospitals. Although hospitals and some clinics had generators or UPS systems, load shedding, irrespective of the stage, affected the day-to-day running of an already under-resourced health system, Mbombo said.
“A greater energy demand is placed on generator capability, which requires an increase in fuel consumption and vast expenditure associated therewith. Most energy consuming equipment like X-ray, nuclear medicine, radiotherapy equipment and clinical equipment used in theatres, intensive care units and emergency centres are affected by load shedding.”
Mbombo said the expenditure incurred on consumables such as diesel could have been prioritised for service delivery.
Department spokesperson Mark van der Heever said all hospitals and 24-hour facilities with emergency centres, Midwife Obstetric Units (MOUs), and cold chain storage had generators.
Forensic Pathology laboratories and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) ambulance stations were also supported by generators.
The City said a number of its clinics had generators, allowing services to continue unaffected during outages, but warned of food safety as a result of power loss to refrigeration systems.
In recent years, City Health introduced an electronic system that allows pharmacists to remotely monitor the temperatures of refrigerators to ensure that the cold chain is preserved for vaccines and other medications requiring refrigeration.
Load shedding, however, affected operations where no back-up systems were in place. These include the appointment systems, accessing patient records and test results, conducting electrocardiography and viewing X-Ray results, ultimately affecting waiting times or in client appointments being postponed.
shakirah.thebus@inl.co.za