Question NW764 to the Minister of Health
05 April 2023 - NW764
Wilson, Ms ER to ask the Minister of Health
Whether he will provide Mrs E R Wilson with a list of the name of each (a) hospital and (b) clinic that is (i) currently exempted from load shedding and (ii) next in line to be exempted in each province in each case; if not, why not; if so, (aa) what are the relevant details and (bb) on what date will each hospital and clinic be exempted?
Reply:
a) Not all hospitals have been exempted from the load-shedding. However, the National Department of Health has provided Eskom with a total of 213 hospitals to be considered for possible exclusion from loadshedding. About 67% of these hospitals are supplied by municipalities while Eskom supplies about 33% of the identified hospitals. Out of the 213 hospitals, 76 hospitals have been exempted of which 26 are directly supplied by Eskom and 50 by Municipalities. The number of hospitals exempted to date have doubled since the meeting held on 22 September 2022 between Eskom and National Department of Health. To date, there are 7 hospitals exempted in Eastern Cape, 9 in Limpopo, 15 in KZN, 4 in Mpumalanga, 4 in Western Cape, 2 in Northern Cape, 3 in North West, 14 in Free State, and 18 in Gauteng provinces. Should there be a need of hospitals names per province, a breakdown list of hospitals is available on request.
b) Load-shedding has a negative impact to the provision of health services at primary health facilities, hospitals, community health centres, clinics, EMS centres including the forensic laboratories. In order to reduce the impact of load-shedding, the National Department of Health is seeking for the financial support to assist with the effective delivery of the following areas:
(i) Additional funding support for fuel, oil including the servicing of generators. The hospitals have been forced to use its budget on fuel, oil and medical gas just to keep healthcare facilities running. With persistent stage 6 load-shedding, greater energy demand is placed on generator capability which requires increased fuel consumption and vast expenditure.
(ii) Additional funding support for the installation of dedicated lines for certain key hospitals that are deeply embedded within the Eskom’s or Municipal networks rendering exclusion impossible in their current state as bigger loads are to be exempted.
(iii) Additional funding support for the roll-out of the solar energy + battery storage as back-up supply to all the clinics, CHC’s, hospitals, EMS centres including the forensic laboratories.
END.