Cape Town - The national Department of Health (DoH) is seeking additional funding to keep the lights switched at health facilities as more institutions are still to be exempted from load shedding.
Health Minister Joe Phaahla said load shedding had a negative impact on the provision of health services at primary health facilities, hospitals, community health centres, clinics, emergency medical services (EMS) centres and forensic laboratories.
“To reduce the impact of load shedding, the national DoH is seeking financial support to assist with the effective delivery,” Phaahla said in response to parliamentary questions from DA MP Lindy Wilson.
Phaala said additional funding support was sought for fuel, oil and the servicing of generators.
“The hospitals have been forced to use their budget on fuel, oil and medical gas just to keep health-care facilities running. With persistent stage 6 load shedding, greater energy demand is placed on generator capability which requires increased fuel consumption and vast expenditure.”
Phaahla also said more funds were being sought for the installation of dedicated lines for certain key hospitals.
He added that his department was seeking additional funding support for the roll-out of solar energy and battery storage as back-up supply to all the clinics, community health-care centres, hospitals and EMS centres, including the forensic laboratories.
Phaahla explained that not all hospitals have been exempted from load shedding.
“However, the national DoH has provided Eskom with a total of 213 hospitals to be considered for possible exclusion from load shedding. About 67% of these hospitals are supplied by municipalities while Eskom supplies about 33% of the identified hospitals.
“Out of the 213 hospitals, 76 have been exempted, of which 26 are directly supplied by Eskom and 50 by municipalities.”
The minister said the number of hospitals exempted to date has doubled since the meeting held on September 22, 2022 between Eskom and his department.
Phaahla said there were seven hospitals exempted in the Eastern Cape, nine in Limpopo, 15 in KwaZulu-Natal, four in Mpumalanga, four in the Western Cape, two in the Northern Cape, three in North West, 14 in the Free State, and 18 in Gauteng.
Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa told the National Council of Provinces that the department with Eskom and municipalities has identified 46 more public facilities to be exempted from load shedding. This was in addition to the 77 hospitals already exempted.
“We continue to look at ways of preventing the disruption of load shedding and reducing the impact of load shedding as we work to achieve energy security.
“The best way to address load shedding is to address the frequency and severity,” Ramaphosa said at the time.
Cape Times