This is according to the DA's Patricia Kopane following the party's oversight inspections at hospitals and clinics in Bloemfontein and surrounding areas. Kopane says the province seems not to have put measures in place to deal with any eventualities amidst Eskom load shedding. She says it is appalling that the Bainsvlei clinic has to do without generators and that the situation has been the same since 2016 while generators at the National Hospital are lying idle. Kopane says it is of great concern that the health facilities, particularly those in remote areas, are not well equipped to function during blackouts. This, coupled with the shortage of staff, medication, resources and aged infrastructure they are faced with.

 "It is clearly not enough that the ANC has looted the country’s resources with such impunity and now they are failing to keep the lights on, plunging South Africans, especially the poor and the sick, into darkness," says Kopane.

Kopane maintains the department must have plans in place for when there is load shedding in all its facilities.

The department's spokesperson, Mondli Mvambi, is yet to respond to OFM News' enquires on the matter.

OFM News