[imagesource: Wikipedia]

It is rather alarming to note that only four Western Cape hospitals have been exempted from load shedding.

Meanwhile, KwaZulu-Natal has 15 hospitals exempt from load shedding, followed by Free State and Gauteng with 14 each.

Limpopo has nine exempted hospitals, Eastern Cape seven, Northern Cape five, and Mpumalanga four.

This is according to Health Minister Joe Phaahla in response to Freedom Front MP Philip van Staden’s question about how many government hospitals and clinics in each province were protected against load shedding in the current Eskom crisis, reported IOL.

In the Western Cape, Phaahla named Groote Schuur, Tygerberg, Red Cross and George Regional hospitals as part of the 76 health facilities exempted from load shedding nationwide since September 2022.

Apparently, the national Department of Health has provided Eskom with a total of 213 hospitals to be considered for possible exclusion from load shedding:

“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,” Phaahla said.

“The number of hospitals exempted to date have doubled since the meeting held on 22 September, 2022 between Eskom and national Department of Health,” he added.

Van Staden also asked about the measures being put in place to ensure that all state and provincial hospitals and clinics would be load-shedding proof.

Phaahla said that there would be a solar energy roll-out programme for clinics and community health centres across the country.

They better get on that or there will be a few civilian deaths to contend with.

[source:iol]