‘Save our hospitals from load-shedding’
Provincial health department seeks exemption for some facilities after backup systems stagger under stage 6 pressure
As Eastern Cape public hospitals’ backup systems buckle under the pressure of loadshedding, the provincial health department is working to get certain facilities exempted.
Gqeberha’s Provincial, Livingstone, Uitenhage Provincial, Elliot and Frere hospitals took strain under stage 6 load-shedding, provincial health spokesperson Yonela Dekeda said.
This prompted the department to start the process of requesting that identified facilities be removed from Eskom’s and the relevant municipalities’ load-shedding schedules.
She said Provincial, Livingstone, Uitenhage Provincial, Elliot and Frere were exempted from load-shedding up to stage 5 and backup generators were used when they were affected by power outages.
However, these backup systems allegedly failed to kick in at the Sundays Valley Hospital in Kirkwood, where nurses reportedly had to use candles for lighting during load-shedding last week and patients were turned away due to the failure of the backup generator.
An employee at the hospital, who did not want to be named, said that EMS paramedics had transported two pregnant women and a patient with breathing difficulties to another hospital after Sundays Valley nurses refused to attend to patients in the dark.
The source said the hospital’s backup generator had given in after two years of faults and oil leaks.
A pregnant patient, who did not want to be named, said she had overheard nurses discussing the hospital’s power problems and saying that they would not deliver babies in the dark.
Two nurses also confirmed the generator failures.
Dekeda acknowledged the generator issues at the hospital, but denied that patients had been transferred to other facilities as a result of the outage.
“There were no patients that were transferred due to any such incident when loadshedding affected the facility.
“Kirkwood is a 35-bed previously provincial-aided hospital that does not admit acutely critically ill patients.
“It does not have an ICU or a theatre and patients in need of those services are transferred to Uitenhage Provincial and other nearby facilities.”
Dekeda said procurement processes were at an advanced stage to obtain a replacement generator, but they were looking to hire one in the meantime.
“The industry has found it challenging to meet the increased demands from business and its clients for both hired and new generators with the onset of load-shedding.”
Meanwhile, the situation at Provincial Hospital had been “manageable” since stage 3 thanks to backup generators, she said.
The Herald reported last month that electricity woes at the hospital put pressure on Nelson Mandela Bay’s other state medical facilities, which had to take on additional theatre cases as a result of the Mount Croix hospital’s situation.
The power outage that hit Provincial was after a contractor severed an underground cable, resulting in the suspension of all surgery work.
While the problem was attended to, more issues around the old and poorly maintained electrical network emerged, meaning theatre patients were being referred to Livingstone and Dora Nginza hospitals.
Normal processes have since commenced at Provincial.
The Eastern Cape health department said at the time that an “electrical revamp” at Provincial was under way and that some patients were being referred out, but stressed that the system was working well and there were no treatment holdups.
Dekeda said no figures were readily available for monthly expenditure on backup systems because load-shedding had not been permanent or continuous for a full month.
The department was using
Backup systems allegedly failed to kick in at the Sundays Valley Hospital in Kirkwood, where nurses reportedly had to use candles for lighting during load-shedding last week and patients were turned away due to the failure of the backup generator
term contracts provided by the National Treasury for the supply of diesel, she said.
DA MPL Jane Cowley has called on the provincial government to put firm plans in place to take Eastern Cape hospitals off the grid.
“The ongoing rolling blackouts across the country are deepening the crises at hospitals, which are struggling to keep lifesaving equipment running during power outages.”
Cowley said she would write to health MEC Nomakhosazana Meth to establish whether an application had been made to the national government to exempt district, provincial and tertiary hospitals from scheduled load-shedding.
By contrast, private Netcare hospitals in the Eastern Cape are not affected by load-shedding, according to Andre Bothma, the regional general manager for Netcare Greenacres and Netcare Cuyler Hospital.
“The majority of Netcare hospitals have dual redundancy systems [double power backup systems] in place, which means that the activities of the hospitals can continue as usual.”
Similarly, all Life Healthcare hospitals are able to function normally during load-shedding due to backup measures.
Coast West regional manager Adriaan Jordaan said the hospitals had two generators, one to ensure that patient areas were unaffected by load-shedding and power outages and the second as a backup should there be any technical or mechanical issues with the first.