Clinics in Gauteng are buckling under the strain of load shedding, which has caused a crisis for medicine storage as back-up generators sometimes run out of diesel, leaving fridges without power.
At two such clinics, frustrated nurses who spoke to City Press this week said load shedding had negatively affected the provision of quality healthcare, as they sometimes had to turn patients away.
Last year, the health department announced that some hospitals across the country would be exempt from load shedding.
National health spokesperson Foster Mohale said the department had provided Eskom with the names of 212 priority hospitals across the country to be considered for exclusion from load shedding in a phased approach.
Mohale said 67% of the hospitals were supplied with electricity directly from the municipalities, while Eskom was responsible for the remaining 33%.
However, this has not been the same arrangement for clinics, which are usually situated in the heart of communities and are the first port of call for patients.
READ: Hospitals buckling under pressure due to load shedding
The healthcare workers City Press spoke to said they sometimes had to work in the dark during power outages.
A nursing sister at a clinic on Gauteng’s East Rand said they had a serious staff shortage and load shedding had worsened the situation.
A nurse said:
We haven’t had a generator for two weeks and the worst part is that our water [pump] is connected to the electricity.
She added: “So, when we have load shedding, we have to close the patients’ toilets because it becomes a health hazard for them to continue using them. We cannot even run tests that require urine samples and patients have to be sent home.”
She said they also did not have refrigerators to keep certain medicines at the right temperature, which meant they had to order medication for patients from a local pharmacy.
“This clinic needs about seven nurses, but there are only two sisters who have to cater for TB patients, mental health patients and those with chronic illnesses,” she said.
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Another sister said most of the clinics in Ekurhuleni had been sporadically running out of diesel since October.
“When there is load shedding, we work in the dark and certain medicines get affected because the temperature goes up.
“This compromises the efficacy of the medication in the pharmacies as well as consulting rooms. Small clinics don’t have pharmacies and their room temperatures run up to more than 30°C,” she said.
She added that, when there was a measles vaccination campaign, the vaccination doses had to be kept in a freezer at freezing point. But sometimes, even after load shedding, the electricity would stay off for hours.
Jack Bloom, the DA’s spokesperson on health in Gauteng, said the public clinics were working under strenuous conditions as some refrigerators were breaking down after multiple power outages.
“Staff are stressed because they have to move medicines to work fridges, otherwise they get spoiled. While the focus has been on the dire effects of load shedding on hospitals, hundreds of provincial and local government clinics are battling. The generators can only provide partial power, so some services suffer,” Bloom said.
He said it was essential that critical clinic services – such as ensuring the immunisation of children on schedule should continue, particularly in light of the current measles outbreak in the country.
Bloom said:
Replacing the fridges should be a priority, along with sufficient diesel supplies and working generators at all the clinics.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Nursing Organisation of SA (Denosa) said the perennial load shedding was compromising the quality of healthcare the clinics provided to communities.
It said the power outages had caused serious disruptions to the delivery of healthcare services at all levels.
Sibongiseni Delihlazo, Denosa’s national spokesperson, said that, while they pleaded with facility managers to always ensure that standby generators were well maintained, the extent of load shedding meant millions of rands were now being spent on fuel. This was not planned for and the blackouts were causing serious issues with budgets.
READ: More hospitals to be exempted from load shedding – Phaahla
“Now, generators stop running before the extended load shedding ends because fuel runs out. This causes serious bottlenecks in the health facilities because healthcare workers rely on machines to scan the patients, the outcomes of which will determine the next course of action on the patient. Now the patients must wait longer and form longer queues [which leads to frustration]. Healthcare workers also have to wait longer for the results,” Delihlazo said.
He said the only way out of this quagmire was for all healthcare facilities to be exempted from load shedding.
Delihlazo said:
But this would need a bit of work to untangle the power lines from the grid that feeds consumers and critical service centres from the same line.
He added: “This needs the intervention of the municipalities and the department of health, otherwise patients are not being served optimally under this unending load shedding.”
Meanwhile, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) this week reported that Gauteng has the highest number of confirmed measles cases, with six from clinics within a 2km radius in Ekurhuleni – three in Daveyton, two at the Phillip Moyo Memorial Health Clinic and one at Crystal Park Clinic.
One case was reported at the Bertha Gxowa Hospital in Germiston. According to the NICD, a vaccination campaign needs to be implemented immediately to prevent the spread of the deadly illness.
Gauteng health spokesperson Motalatale Modiba said cold chain management was a challenge during load shedding, and that there were almost 30 facilities that did not have generators.
“Diesel supply to facilities with generators is inconsistent due to supply constraints by service providers. Ekurhuleni clinics do encounter challenges with the fridges due to load shedding and about 144 fridges in the district require repairs. Eleven fridges were replaced by the central office and a request to repair 144 fridges has been submitted by the district for processing.”
He said 64 of 93 facilities had back-up generators, but 29 facilities that fall under the City of Ekurhuleni do not have generators and, due to budget constraints, there was no plan in place to procure any.
