Johannesburg - Embattled power utility Eskom is bringing to life George Orwell's famous Animal Farm story where “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.
This as large sectors of society have raised concerns over the implementation of load shedding where areas that house politicians are spared but health facilities bear the brunt of the blackouts.
This has resulted in health-care practitioners writing a petition to Eskom to refrain from this and instead, prioritise power supply to hospitals and clinics where it is needed to save lives.
In a bid to address the challenge, Professor Adam Mohamed, head of Internal Medicine at Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, has called on the government to exempt hospitals from load shedding schedule.
His plea comes as the country has been gripped by the biggest bout of load shedding in history. Last week, Eskom implemented stage 6 load shedding, citing breakdowns at power stations. This saw the country plunged into darkness for at least six hours a day.
However, the power utility reduced load shedding to stage 3 this week.
In the petition, Mohamed said the reason for his call was that load shedding had put a strain on hospital equipment and patients’ lives, while ministers were not affected. The petition needed 50 000 signatures and so far, 39 881 people had signed (the figure needs to be changed by Saturday).
“Streets with ministerial homes do not get load shed for security purposes but hospitals that are used to save lives do. Does that mean that the lives of healthy politicians are more important than those of the sick public?” asked Mohamed in the petition.
He said in the Western Cape, hospitals were already exempt from load shedding. He said the same should be done in other provinces - including Gauteng.
“UPS batteries in Neonatal Care Wards and other ICUs do not have enough time to recharge between power cuts during load shedding, which is fatal for infants and the most vulnerable of patients. Even where hospitals do have generators, they cannot power the entire hospital, so out-patients for example, who sit in an area that is not considered an emergency area, will sit in total darkness requiring health-care professionals to use their cellphone torches to examine them,” Mohamed said.
He added: “During load shedding, Charlotte Maxeke burns through between 800 and 900 litres of diesel a day. This translates into an expenditure of between R5 million and R8 million a month - which all comes out of the provincial health budget. This means that there is R5 million to R8 million less to spend on patient care.”
Mohamed added that the supply of water was also affected during load shedding. He said this had a direct impact on hygiene and an increase in the spread of infections.
Last week, health authorities in Limpopo had to cancel all elective operations due to load shedding schedules and a lack of water at its facilities.
Mohamed’s sentiments were echoed by nurses who spoke to the publication this week, indicating that the situation put patients at risk.
A nurse at the Zone 13 clinic, in the Vaal, said they had to be on their toes all the time and think out of the box when it came to assisting patients.
“Diesel was once stolen from the generator and this stopped everything. We had to transfer people to Sebokeng or Levai Mbatha Community Health Centre, to save lives,” she said.
A security officer at Itemoheng Hospital in Senekal in the Free State said they had to watch the agony that health practitioners and patients were subjected to as a result of power cuts.
“The situation is better but gets worse as generators are running out of petrol. This is a big problem because there are people who survive on oxygen machines, and a lot of them have died as a result of load shedding and a shortage of petrol. Even when there’s petrol, the generator does not cover the whole hospital. Security and nurses' office would be left in the dark. We would get cold and stranded. And remember, there’s a shortage of water in Senekal and load shedding makes it worse because the toilets are not flushed,” she said.
On Friday, Health Minister Joe Phaahla said his department was working closely with provinces to monitor the situation to provide required guidance to ensure that no hospital completely shut down because of a lack of supply of power.
Phaahla added that the department has been engaging relevant authorities and entities involved in the power supply to exclude hospitals and other health facilities from load shedding. He said following the engagement, 37 hospitals across the country were considered for exemption.
These hospitals include Charlotte Maxeke, Helen Joseph and Kalafong Hospital.
“In terms of our response to this disruptive challenge, we have developed a multifaced strategy for immediate, short and long-term implementation. The engagements between the department, Eskom and municipalities have resulted in the agreement that the provincial departments will submit consolidated lists of facilities indicating their location to assist in the determination of the workable criteria of exemption,” said Phaahla.
Eskom spokesperson Sikhonathi Mantshantsha failed to respond to direct questions as to how the power utility was able to spare areas where politicians live and not health-care facilities.
He was asked:
- How is it that the areas where ministers live can be able to avoid load shedding while the hospitals are not?
- If Eskom is able to identify and assist these areas, why are hospitals not included?
- According to a petition by Prof Adam Mohamed, in the Western Cape, hospitals are already exempt from load shedding while the rest of the provinces are not. What is Eskom’s comment on this?
Instead, Mantshantsha said Eskom conformed to the provisions of NRS048-9, which provided guidelines in terms of load reduction practices. He said the standard outlined the treatment of critical loads and identifies a minimum set of critical load types that should be addressed by various supply authorities.
“Critical loads should as far as possible be protected from the impact of load shedding or loss of supply. Protection measures could include the exclusion from load shedding schedules, installing of back-up facilities, or implementing of specific protocols for interaction between the customer and the licensee.”
He added: “Note that critical loads would only be excluded where it is practically possible (network dependent) and be limited to cases where the load can be isolated so that other loads that should be shed are not also protected from the load shedding schedules.”