Health service delivery at Elizabeth Ross District Hospital in Qwaqwa in the Maluti-A-Phofung municipality is undermined by ongoing power cuts in the largely rural area of the eastern Free State. Insiders told Sunday World that the two backup generators at the hospital malfunction when they are meant to kickstart the power during outages.
The situation worsens when the power goes out during the nighttime; it is understood that medical staff are forced to use their phones to light up their working stations while on duty.
According to insiders who spoke to Sunday World, this problem has been happening for the past six months. They voiced their concerns about hospital management’s disregard for their complaints, which has perpetuated the situation.
“Since September last year, we have been complaining about this situation, but nobody cares to address the crisis. As you know, Qwaqwa has constant power cuts; this also affects Elizabeth Ross Hospital. However, the situation becomes bad when the two powered generators fail to kickstart. This puts our lives in danger, as you know that this hospital is right in Mangaung village, where crime is rife,” said one medical doctor.
In January last year, two police officers were killed on the hospital’s premises, sending shockwaves throughout Qwaqwa. They were responding to a house robbery within the vicinity of Elizabeth Ross when they met their demise.
Some hospital employees expressed concern about the incident, fearing that criminals might target them, especially at night when the facility plunges into darkness.
“The worst part is that we work through darkness and navigate corridors and attend patients using torches from our phones. We work in fear, and as that stands, we don’t know why the generators’ problems are not fixed,” said an employee.
Free State health spokesperson Mondli Mvambi confirmed that there are two powered generators for the hospital, citing that they had been serviced this financial year and, for that purpose, hospital-allocated funds were used.
“This service is not contracted to any external electrical contractor. Due to the unique frequent electrical challenges facing Maluti-a-Phofung, our generators end up being overworked. These generators quickly outrun their life span.
“Such unintended overuse results in incidents where the generator may fail to start automatically when required due to depletion of the quick start function.
“As a hospital, with the support of the Provincial Infrastructure Chief Directorate, we make contingency plans to have the automatic kickstart to avert malfunction,” said Mvambi.
Mvambi also said that despite many episodes of electricity being cut off, no lives were lost.
“Elizabeth Ross Hospital is a district hospital; thus, we do not offer ICU and high-care services. We have sufficient diesel for use and reserves to replenish while we order refills on time.
For theatres, we have a newly installed UPS; therefore, the services in the theatre run seamlessly even during electricity cuts.
“The hospital oxygen plant is not electricity dependent, and the hospital also has emergency cylinders which we never had to use in any of the electricity cuts, but we keep them available and well maintained,” said Mvambi.
