The Health Minister, Dr Joe Phaahla, says he will outline measures this week to address the impact of load shedding on the country’s health hospitals.
His announcement on Monday comes in the wake of calls by the Progressive Health Forum and the Health Professions Council of South Africa for hospitals to be exempt from load shedding.
Dr Phaahla said in a statement that he “has been concerned for some time with this matter of load shedding with the hope that it improves, but it has gotten worse to higher levels of 5 and 6 as it impacts on the provision of health care services across the country.”
He has since “ordered the Director-General, working with Provincial Heads of Health Departments to finalise the assessment of the impact already in the past week.”
The Minister has also been engaging with the relevant authorities and entities including the Minister of Public Enterprises, Eskom, and Municipalities on the processes to be followed in order to exempt health facilities from load shedding.
Paahla said he’s also working “on alternative additional sources over-above the generators, which are not meant for prolonged outages to seek additional supply of power to be considered for installation in the health facilities.”
He will give a comprehensive report on the impact and the intervention measures at a briefing on Friday.
