Cape Town - As Eskom ramped-up load shedding to Stage 4 in the wee hours of of Tuesday morning, it emerged that only half of the province’s clinics have alternative back-up power.
This comes as the provincial Health Department plans to power-up 51 clinics during load shedding in rural areas.
In written replies, Health Minister Joe Phaahla said back-up power in the form of generators was available at 42% of clinics across the country, while community health centres have 86% availability.
Phaahla said only 88 of the Western Cape’s 175 clinics have back-up electricity.
Nationally, only 1 288 clinics of 3 067 have back-up power.
Provincial Health spokesperson Mark van der Heever said the clinics referred to in the minister’s replies are mostly eight-hour clinics and do not make use of sophisticated electronic equipment.
He said no labour hours were lost to load shedding, but service might be slower in clinics with no back-up power.
“In response to these clinics’ needs during load shedding, the department will be implementing an inverter turn-key project for back-up electricity at 51 rural clinics in the next six months of this financial year.
“Our department has also engaged Eskom and the City of Cape Town to exempt hospitals from load shedding. Tygerberg, Groote Schuur and Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospitals were already exempted prior to the request for the additional 19 hospitals.”
He said additional hospitals that are now exempted on the City’s grid are the New Somerset Hospital, Mitchells’ Plain Hospital, Karl Bremer Hospital and Victoria Hospital.
George Hospital is exempted on the Eskom grid.
“We are looking forward to the City and Eskom’s support in realising the exemption of the remaining 14 hospitals in the order of priority,” Van der Heever said.