By OBAKENG MAJE
North West MEC for Health, Madoda Sabambatha said the province cannot be treated differently in a crisis. This comes after power utility, Eskom excluded the North West hospitals from load shedding exemption.
The minister of health, Dr Joe Phaahla announced on Monday that, key hospitals across the country will be exempted from load shedding. Phaahla said, his department had a consultative engagement with Eskom in September 2022 to consider exempting key hospitals in the country from load-shedding as part of mitigating against the impact of the energy crisis.
Sambatha said the request from the national department was for provinces to submit the list of hospitals to be considered for exemption, which they did.
“However, there is not even a single hospital from North West in that list of hospitals that have just been released. We are concerned that, there seems to be no appreciation of health as an essential service.
“Provinces cannot be treated differently in a crisis. Just like other provinces, the North West did submit a list of hospitals to be exempted from load-shedding,” he said.
Sambatha further said, they were concerned when they saw Mpumalanga hospital listed under North West when the first list was published.
There were allegations that North West province failed to submit the list, however, Sambatha squashed those allegations and said they are untrue.
“We have made a follow-up requesting the minister’s intervention as the province cannot be treated as if it is not part of South Africa. North West hospitals will be severely affected should the load shedding persist.
“At the moment, some services get interrupted and patients are beginning to complain due to the number of times they have to wait for electricity to return,” he said.
Buoyed Sambatha added that, if the province is not included by next week based on its submission, they will organise a provincial march targeting Eskom and demand that the province be included in the list of hospitals that are exempt from load shedding.
The Guardian 