‘Time to exempt healthcare centres from loadshedding’

CONTINUED rolling blackouts have ignited calls for hospitals and clinics to be exempt from load shedding due to the impact on the healthcare system, which already has to cope with inadequate budgets.

Many unions, including the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) and health associations have been urging that healthcare facilities be spared power cuts to ensure efficient services.

Denosa spokesperson Sibongiseni Delihlazo said it had been found that on many occasions provincial health departments' back-up generators were not maintained and failed to kick in during load shedding.

“Load shedding interrupts the work of nurses and doctors in many ways, especially in institutions that utilize advanced digital recording systems for patients.

“They have to stop working when power goes off as they can't track the historical records of patients and make use of manual papers.

“Other critical areas of healthcare services get compromised severely. Blood results and x-rays are computerized, and these areas get affected negatively when power goes off.

“On many occasions, back-up generators are not maintained and thus fail to kick in during load shedding,” he said.

Delihlazo said their biggest concern was the exorbitant costs, that runs into millions of rands, being used on diesel.

“Then we are often told there is no money to hire staff.

“That creates double-standards,” he said.

Hospital Association of South Africa (Hasa) said they were also in favour of exempting hospitals from load shedding.

“We're in favour of hospital managers receiving whatever support they need to ensure they can provide ongoing support and care for vulnerable patients,” Hasa's Mark Peach said.

SACP Secretary of Policy and Research, Dr Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo said South Africa needs a different, people-centred approach to undo Eskom's damage caused by “neoliberal policies” and that part of this was to exempt hospitals, clinics and healthcare in its entirety from load shedding to save lives.

Health and Wellness MEC Dr Nomafrench Mbombo said recently her department had spent R21.8 million on diesel fuel supplies between April and June.

Mbombo said 249 healthcare facilities were equipped with either generators or Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) devices.

Provincial health spokesperson Mark van der Heever said their hospitals have generators with theatres prioritised for emergency power supply and many clinics were also equipped with generators or UPS systems.

“We have also increased fuel levels to ensure our generators can run during longer periods of load shedding and are monitoring the situation closely. The cost of fuel is included in the departmental operating budget.

“Where a clinic does not have a generator, service delivery might be slower than usual as we will have to revert to a manual patient system,” he said.