Cape Town – The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has backed calls for the government to exempt essential health-care service facilities from load shedding, saying hospitals in the country were buckling under pressure.
Eskom announced on Tuesday that load shedding would continue to be implemented at Stage 5, with the possibility of reducing one stage sometime on Thursday.
Many unions and health organisations including the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa and the Hospital Association of South Africa have been urging for this action to be reviewed for a while.
HPCSA, which is mandated to regulate the health professions in the country as well as fostering compliance with health-care standards, says the ongoing power cuts have created more strain to the already far stretched healthcare system.
“Load shedding has negatively impacted the provision of quality care in all our health facilities and placed an enormous strain on the health practitioners on their daily routine of work.
“Health-care practitioners in the hospitals are unable to perform emergency surgeries timeously because of load shedding and this has put the lives of the patients at risk.
“These health facilities are also platforms used for undergraduates’ internships and postgraduate training of health professionals who are also negatively affected,” HPCSA president professor Simon Nemutandani said.
According to Nemutandani, the performance and life span of medical equipment and devices at about 420 state-run hospitals and more than 3 000 state-run clinics were negatively affected by the power interruptions.
“Smaller healthcare facilities including primary healthcare clinics which are not equipped with generator banks are often left in the dark.”
Cape Times