City Power exempts these Joburg hospitals from load shedding

City Power has started to exclude certain hospitals and clinics in Johannesburg from load shedding. This is due to the challenges these health facilities go through during the blackouts.

CITY POWER TO EXCLUDE SOME HOSPITALS FROM LOAD SHEDDING

City Power’s decision comes after they were approached by the Department of Health to consider ways to exempt their facilities from the power cuts.

The rendering of electricity service to residents is of a critical nature, said City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena.

“City Power has started excluding certain hospitals and clinics from load shedding because of the pressures and challenges the health facilities go through during the blackouts.”

Isaac Mangena

City Power wanted to ensure minimal disruptions to essential services such as clinics and hospitals. But excluding all of them would be difficult.

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HOSPITALS WHICH ARE EXEMPT SO FAR

City Power received a list of over 130 health facilities, including clinics and hospitals within Johannesburg.

Due to the assessment of the network, City Power is only able to exempt about ten facilities on that list, for now, said Mangena.

“The reason is because of our network configurations and the fact that most of these facilities are embedded within the network blocks. We have limited resources that could be used to operate, often physically, during load shedding,” said Mangena.

The health facilities which City Power managed to exempt include:

• Parkhurst Municipal Clinic
• Johannesburg Eye Hospital
• Coronation Hospital
• Helen Joseph Hospital.

“We are going through the network layout to see if we can be able to exempt more of the health facilities,” Mangena said.

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LOAD SHEDDING POSES CHALLENGES TO HEALTH FACILITIES

Minister of Health Dr Joe Phaahla had on Monday expressed concern regarding the high levels of load shedding. He said it impacts the health care services across the country.

Phaahla ordered the Director-General and the provincial heads of Health Departments to finalise an assessment of the impact this has had in the past week.

“In addition, the Minister has been 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 to complement the generators as part of the energy mix,” said Health spokesperson Foster Mohale.

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