The number of hospitals excluded from load-shedding across the country has now increased from 37 to 72 since the last public announcement by Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla in September.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health said more efforts are being made to implement the exemption of health facilities, as a matter of urgency, in line with the commitment made to ensure that no province is left behind.

According to the department’s updated list on Thursday, 17 hospitals are located in Gauteng, 15 in KZN, 14 in the Free State, 10 in Limpopo, seven in the Eastern Cape, and four each in Mpumalanga and the Western Cape.

The team is investigating possible load curtailment for big hospitals, as well as other alternative solutions.

According to the department, this exercise is part of government’s efforts to mitigate the impact of power outages on the national provision of essential health services.

The department said it has furnished the state-owned entity with 212 priority hospitals across the country to be considered for possible exclusion from load-shedding on a phased approach, of which 67% are supplied directly by municipalities, while Eskom supplies the remaining 33%.

“The preliminary network analysis revealed that 28 hospitals in various provinces can be excluded from load-shedding by building new infrastructure at the estimated cost of R100m.”