Health professional bodies and unions have urged the government to consider exempting hospitals and healthcare centres from Eskom’s continued load shedding which, they say, adds even more pressure to already constrained systems and inadequate budgets.
Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Denosa) spokesperson Sibongiseni Delihlazo said healthcare facilities should be spared power cuts to ensure efficient services, and that often, provincial Health Departments’ back-up generators were not maintained and failed to kick in during load shedding, reports Cape Times.
“The power outages interrupt the work of nurses and doctors in many ways, especially in institutions using advanced digital recording systems for patients. They have to stop working when power goes off as they can’t track the patients’ records, while other critical areas are also compromised. Blood results and x-rays are computerised, so these are badly affected when the power goes off.”
Delihlazo said their biggest concern was the exorbitant costs, which runs into millions of rands, for generator fuel.
“Then we are often told there is no money to hire staff,” he said.
Health and Wellness MEC Dr Nomafrench Mbombo said recently her department had spent R21.8m on diesel between April and June – and that 249 healthcare facilities were equipped with either generators or Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) devices.
The Hospital Association of South Africa (HASA) is also pushing for exempting hospitals from load shedding.
“Hospital managers need to receive whatever support they can get to ensure they are able to provide ongoing support and care for vulnerable patients,” said the organisation’s Mark Peach.
SACP secretary of policy and research Dr Alex Mohubetswane Mashilo said South Africa needed 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 from load shedding to save lives.
Provincial health spokesperson Mark van der Heever said their hospitals have generators, with theatres prioritised for emergency power supply. 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.”
Cape Times PressReader article – ‘Time to exempt healthcare centres from loadshedding’ (Open access)
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