Health dept promises to exempt more hospitals from load shedding

The National Health department is working toward getting more hospitals exempted from load shedding as Eskom subjects the country to deliberate power cuts.

Following the department’s intervention, the ailing parastatal has exempted 72 healthcare facilities from load shedding.

This is an increase from the 37 since the last public announcement by the Minister of Health, Dr Joe Phaahla, in September.

More exemptions

Health Department spokesperson Foster Mohale more efforts are being made to implement exemption of health facilities in provinces such the Northern Cape and North West as a matter of urgency in line with the commitment made to ensure that no province is left behind.

“The team led by the Director General of Health, Dr Sandile Buthelezi and Eskom Group Executive for Distribution, Mr Monde Bala is currently working closely with authorities in the two provinces on alternative short-to-medium solutions to implement exemption of hospitals.”  

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“This is despite the technical challenges experienced which include the current electricity configuration of the networks in most areas in which some of the hospitals are found to be deeply embedded within networks, which makes it difficult to immediately isolate them,” Mohale said.

Bigger hospitals

Mohale said the team is investigating possible load curtailment for bigger hospitals as well as other alternative solutions for load shedding at health facilities.

“The department has provided Eskom with a total of 212 priority hospitals across the country to be considered for possible exclusion from load shedding on a phased approach, and 67% of them are supplied directly by municipalities.

“The preliminary network analysis conducted revealed that, 28 hospitals in various provinces can be excluded from load shedding by building new infrastructure at the estimated cost of R100 million

The updated list of facilities per provinces exempted from load shedding:

• Eastern Cape (7)
• Free State (14)
• Gauteng (17)
• KZN (15)
• Limpopo (10)
• Mpumalanga (4)
• Western Cape (4)
• Northern Cape (1)
• North West (0)

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