Health
(a) (i) How many back-up generators and (ii) with what capacity does each of the (aa) hospital and (bb) health facilities in the province have, for each (b) (i) how many generators are functional and (ii) for how many hours can each facility run on generator power supply at current fuel levels and (c) what is the minimum number of litres of fuel kept at each facility to power generators?
RESPONSE
- ]i] The Department has established a Departmental Electrical Supply Response Team to conduct a situational analysis, identify critical needs and to develop a business continuity plan for the Department’s operations. In order to provide equitable geographic access to essential health care provision across the province, the un-interrupted provision of essential clinical services during electricity disruptions necessitates the development of an appropriate framework to ensure the provision of certain essential clinical and other services in prioritized facilities. To support health facilities to render essential health services in case of electricity interruption, the Department currently has generators installed at all district, regional and tertiary hospitals, all 24-hour primary health facilities, some day-clinics, the majority of forensic pathology laboratories and EMS bases. In addition, there are also generators installed at the Cape Medical Depot as well as the Chronic Dispensing Unit.
]ii]]aa] Diesel storage capacity varies per facility but the standard is to maintain a 72-hour fuel reserves at each site.
]ii]]bb] as above
- ]i] All generators are functional and are maintained regularly by the Directorate: Engineering and Technical Support. The department has maintenance agreements with contracted service providers of generators. The agreement for the maintenance of generators makes provision for the emergency repairs of broken standby generators via emergency repair delegations.
]ii] Generators have an operation life of 55 000 hours.
- The WCGH’s standard is to maintain 72-hour fuel reserves at the allocated facilities irrespective of generator size per facility.
Not all health facilities are provided with generators as only those facilities mentioned in question 1 have generators - 164 facilities have standby generators installed. A tender to supply and deliver a further 66 standby generators at various identified facilities is at adjudication stage. The Primary Health Care Information System will not be operational at facilities where there are no generator. During this time, clients will be issued a folder manually with their name and ID numbers being the reference point. The visit and relevant data will be back-captured when power resumes.
At institutions with generators providing back-up power, the IT systems can all be maintained at a local level and function to support both patient care and support services.
All Toxicology and Pharmacology services, laboratories and blood banks will be kept operational through means of generators to accommodate testing and servicing of all health sites. These laboratories are either connected to the generator on the hospital premises or a nearby site.
