By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Health minister Joe Phaahla is expected to outline a comprehensive report this week on the impact of load shedding and measures to be taken by health facilities as the country moves to higher stages of power cuts.
This comes after the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) called on hospitals and clinics to be exempted from the load shedding schedules.
HPCSA, which is mandated to regulate the health professions in the country as well as fostering compliance with health-care standards, said the ongoing power cuts have created more strain to the already far stretched healthcare system.
“Load shedding has negatively impacted the provision of quality care in all our health facilities and placed an enormous strain on the health practitioners on their daily routine of work.
“Health-care practitioners in the hospitals are unable to perform emergency surgeries timeously because of load shedding and this has put the lives of the patients at risk.
“These health facilities are also platforms used for undergraduates’ internships and postgraduate training of health professionals who are also negatively affected,” HPCSA president professor Simon Nemutandani said.
According to Nemutandani, the performance and life span of medical equipment and devices at about 420 state-run hospitals and more than 3 000 state-run clinics were negatively affected by the power interruptions.
“Smaller healthcare facilities including primary healthcare clinics which are not equipped with generator banks are often left in the dark.”
The department of health said “Phaahla has been concerned for some time with this matter of load shedding with the hope that it improves, but it has gotten worse to higher levels of 5 and 6 as it impacts on the provision of healthcare services across the country.
Phaahla has since ordered the Director-General, working with provincial heads of the department, to finalise the assessment of an impact study done in the past week.
Also the department said the minister is engaging with the relevant authorities and entities, including Public Enterprises Minister, Eskom and municipalities, about the processes to be followed to exempt health facilities from load shedding.
The department said it has been working on alternative sources of power over and above the generators, as the generators are not meant for prolonged outages.
The minister is seeking an additional supply of power to be considered for installation in the health facilities to complement the generators as part of the energy mix, it said.
Phaahla is expected to hold a media briefing on Friday, 30 September 2022, outlining further interventions.
Delivering his Heritage Day message, President Ramaphosa Cyril said in the recent two weeks, the country has been seeing a rise in load shedding, which is disrupting lives and the economy and causing havoc from the social and health point of view.
However, he told citizens that government was dealing with the crisis head-on.
Last week, Ramaphosa cut short his overseas trip short to return home to deal with the Eskom power crisis
“Even as we face these challenges as South Africans as we have done in the past. We have persevered and I ask once again, let us persevere,” he said.
“The challenge is being addressed. It’s a complex one and we will be speaking soon about the various measures that we are taking to make sure that we address this challenge.”