Load shedding: Energy experts claim lights could stay on at health facilities

Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla’s plan to get health facilities exempt from load shedding may run into a wall as many facilities are hard-wired into the communities they serve.

In Johannesburg, City Power can only exempt 10 healthcare facilities out of the 130 the department of health had put on its list, following a crescendo of calls for hospitals and clinics to be turned into load shedding-free zones.

Meanwhile stage 3 and stage 4 load shedding will continue to be implemented between midnight and 4pm and 4pm to midnight until Saturday.

Breakdowns as of Wednesday amounted to 15 492MW while planned maintenance is 5 076MW, according to Eskom.

Load shedding at hospitals

According to the department, Phaahla “has been working on alternative additional sources over and above the generators, which are not meant for prolonged outages, to seek additional supply of power to be considered for installation in the health facilities to complement the generators as part of the energy mix”.

He is expected to give a comprehensive report on the impact and the intervention measures tomorrow. City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the department had asked them to consider ways to exempt facilities from load shedding “because of the pressures they feel as they render a critical service to the residents”.

Mangena said: “While we are committed as City Power to ensure there is minimal to no disruption to essential services such as clinics and hospitals, it is difficult to exclude all of them from load shedding.

“The reason is because of our network configurations and the fact that most of these facilities are embedded within the network blocks and we have limited resources that could be used to operate, often physically, during load shedding.

“Those we managed to exempt include Parkhurst Municipal Clinic, Johannesburg Eye Hospital, Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital, and Helen Joseph Hospital.”

‘Unnecessary load shedding deaths’

This follows a request from the Health Professions Council of South Africa and a petition from Professor Adam Mohamed, head of internal medicine at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, and the South African Medical Association.

In the petition, Mohamed said the Western Cape had exempted healthcare facilities from load shedding and urged Gauteng to do the same.

“The government couldn’t prevent Covid deaths but surely it can prevent unnecessary load shedding deaths,” he wrote.

“Gauteng provincial government exempts hospitals from being load shed.

“Stand up and be counted and urge your ward councillors and politicians to assist patients in getting the best care possible.”

He also said load shedding put a strain on both hospital equipment – which is already aged – and patients’ lives.

“Emergency surgeries cannot be performed timeously because of it,” he noted. “As it is, after Covid, the number of admissions and severity of disease have increased exponentially, putting a further strain on an already stretched healthcare system.”

Energy analyst Ted Blom said, theoretically, Eskom had the capacity to exempt healthcare facilities from load shedding, which would not only save lives but also cut unnecessary costs for those facilities, which could go towards patient care and relieve pressure from already constrained systems and inadequate budgets.

“They can do it because the current grid is integrated and it’s really very configured,” he said. “So, can they do it? Theoretically, yes. Will they do it? No, because they’re too useless to do anything.”

Another energy analyst, Hilton Trollip, said if Eskom could, they should absolutely do it, because the total amount of energy used by all the hospitals was very little compared to big industries and firms.

“The huge personal costs that people bear if they don’t get proper medical care should never be the results of trying to save energy.

So if they can save energy somewhere else they should definitely look there. But healthcare facilities they should always keep connected if they can.”

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– reitumetsem@citizen.co.za