Health Department and Eskom report progress on hospitals exemptions
Pretoria: The Department of Health and Eskom report progress made with regards to exclusion of priority hospitals from loadshedding as part of government efforts to mitigate the impact of power outage on the provision of essential health services in the country.
The current number of hospitals excluded from loadshedding across the country, has increased from 37 to 72 since the last public announcement by Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla in September, while 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 such as New Bophelong Psychiatric Hospital; Bophelong Hospital; Taung Hospital; Ganyesa Hospital; Moses Kotane Hospital and Tshwaragano Hospital.
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.
However, the team is investigating possible load curtailment for bigger hospitals as well as other alternative solutions.
The Department has provided Eskom with a total of 212 priority hospitals across the country to be considered for possible exclusion from loadshedding on a phased approach, and 67% of them are supplied directly by municipalities, while Eskom supplies the remaining 33%.
The preliminary network analysis conducted revealed that, 28 hospitals in various provinces can be excluded from loadshedding by building new infrastructure at the estimated cost of R100 million.
The updated list of exempted facilities per provinces is as follows: Eastern Cape (7), Free State (14), Gauteng (17), KZN (15), Limpopo (10), Mpumalanga (4), Western Cape (4) Northern Cape (1), and North West (0).
Source: Government of South Africa