Cape Town - Of the list of over 200 hospitals the National Department of Health (NDoH) asked Eskom to exempt from power cuts, only 76 have been excluded.
Deputy health minister, Dr Sibongiseni Maxwell Dhlomo on Tuesday briefed the National Council of Provinces on mitigating the negative impact of load shedding in the provision of healthcare services.
In light of the negative impacts of load shedding at health facilities, hospitals and clinics, Eskom and the NDoH have been engaged since September 22 last year.
“The Department has provided Eskom with a list of 213 hospitals to be considered for possible exclusion.
About 67% of these are supplied by municipalities whilst about 33% are supplied by Eskom.
“Of the 213 hospitals, 76 have been exempted - 26 directly supplied by Eskom and 50 by municipalities,” said Dhlomo.
Municipality supplied hospitals exempted in the Western Cape include George Regional, Tygerberg, Groote Schuur and Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital.
Historically, all hospitals had back up generators covering sensitive areas like theatre, ICU, maternal and neonatal wards, however according to Dlomo now: “(With the) unbudgeted increase in diesel and oil expenditure including maintenance costs of generators, generators now are regarded as not adequate to meet demands during load shedding”.
As a result, some hospitals were forced to switch off some critical areas.
“Persistent power surges are a significant contributory factor to reduced lifespan of specialised equipment like CT Scans, Radiology and Theatre equipment. (The) ultimate result is adverse patient outcomes which pose further medico-legal contingent liabilities.”
As a solution, the NDoH said in partnership with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) they were currently conducting a due diligence exercise for the installation of solar panels and battery storage as back up for the critical areas at public health facilities, based on an estimated demand profile for clinics; Community Health Centres (CHCs); district hospitals; regional hospitals; tertiary hospitals; central hospitals and specialised hospitals.
“The purpose of (the) NDoH-CSIR study is to identify a critical consumption for critical areas of each health facility.
“(The) study will enable the department to compile a comprehensive business case to justify the required budget; identify critical areas within a health facility that require a back up service from the solar energy. The CSIR (will also) quantify the required size of solar energy and consider different kits of inverters with batteries for the clinics and CHC’s,” the deputy minister said.
Dhlomo added that the health director general and Eskom’s head of distribution were leading a team to prepare “a multifaceted strategy to drive interventions”.
Meanwhile, a preliminary network analysis conducted by Eskom found that 46 hospitals in various provinces can be exempted from load shedding by installing new infrastructure within a budget cost of approximately R356 358 000.
Eskom did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.
Cape Times