Durban — The chairperson of the Health Portfolio Committee in KwaZulu-Natal Nomakiki Majola has expressed concern regarding the impact of load shedding in hospitals.
This comes after allegations that high-care sections and casualty wards were affected at the St Mary’s hospital in Mariannhill. Majola said they received reports of no water and air conditioning in the patients’ wards in the hospital.
She said the nursing staff was fetching water from neighbouring wards using buckets of water to clean patients after every nursing-care procedure.
“While toilets had no water, nursing staff had no option but to seek help from other neighbouring wards whose water pressure was also very low. Situations like these are linked to problems of load shedding,” said Majola
She said the pipes that supply water burst a few days ago and that was resolved but water has been kept on low pressure to avoid a recurrence of the problem. Majola said this has also affected the chillers that control the cooling system
However, Majola expressed her satisfaction at the speedy response to the problem but said she was concerned and disturbed by the impact the situation of blackouts has had on the staff, and appealed to the hospital to provide alternative measures so that patient care is not affected in situations like these. She also added that there should be a contingency plan because the generators are unable to accommodate the long hours of load shedding.
Department of Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane dismissed these allegations and said it was not true that the hospital had no water or suffered the effects of load shedding.
Simelane said on Tuesday there was a slight disruption of the normal supply of water, due to the bursting of a pipe that supplies water from eThekwini Municipality to the hospital via the reservoir tank. She said the damage was repaired almost immediately and the water supply was restored in less than four hours.
She added that as a precaution, the water pressure had to be reduced until the newly repaired pipe had sufficiently dried up, so that the damage would not re-occur. Invariably, the reduced water pressure affected the cooling system, since the chiller relies on regular water supply in order to function optimally.
“None of the challenges that were temporarily experienced on Tuesday were as a result of load shedding during this four-hour period, and at no point were patients’ lives placed at risk. Like all our hospitals and 75% of our clinics, St Mary’s Hospital has alternative power generation capacity, which is well-maintained and well-managed, and fully functional,” said Simelane.
An appeal to the Health Portfolio Committee, said Simelane, to utilise the various open channels of communication at its disposal and seek clarity from the department on any pertinent matters, as it has done before.
Daily News