Johannesburg - The Hospital Association of South Africa (HASA), the representative organisation for most of the country’s private hospital groups, welcomes Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla’s announcement to try and exempt hospitals, clinics and health-care facilities from load shedding.
Phaahla said he has been concerned for some time about this matter of load shedding with the hope that it improves. However, prolonged load shedding has gotten worse reaching higher levels of five and six, and blackouts impact on the provision of health-care services across the country.
“Load shedding occurs throughout the country, in areas where both private and public hospitals operate. Therefore, both public and private facilities are affected. Consequently, care for vulnerable patients in both sectors is being adversely affected in many ways. Both public and private hospitals suffer many of the same challenges because of load shedding,” HASA said.
The association added that these include multiple institutions in some areas suffering load shedding simultaneously so that access to care for some in those areas is being eroded; large-scale degeneration of equipment; rising operating costs due to generator maintenance and diesel costs; as well as storage and security costs, which all contribute to the problem. Without lights, providing care for the most vulnerable is onerous and is becoming more so as the lights have been off for several hours a day and night, every day, during this latest cycle of cuts.
“For these reasons, HASA urges the minister of health to advocate for relief from load shedding for all acute care hospitals at the very least, but also preferably for day clinics and community clinics around the country,” HASA said.
The Star