THE Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has urged the government to exempt all hospitals from load shedding.
The HPCSA said hospitals in the country were buckling under pressure because of the various stages of load shedding.
HPCSA's president Prof Simon Nemutandani said this has created more strain to the already stretched healthcare system.
He said load shedding has negatively impacted the provision of quality care in all their health facilities and placed an enormous strain on health practitioners.
"Health practitioners in hospitals are unable to perform emergency surgeries timeously because of load shedding and this has put the lives of the patients at risk.
"These health facilities are also platforms used for the undergraduate internships and postgraduate training of health professionals who are also negatively affected by load shedding," he said.
He added that more than 80% of South Africans were reliant on public healthcare services and the implementation of load shedding without a proper contingency plan has proved to be catastrophic in the healthcare environment.
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According to Nemutandani, there are about 420 state-run hospitals and more than 3 000 state-run clinics across the country, and they're affected by load shedding.
He said private facilities and secondary and tertiary level public hospitals appear to be well equipped with generator banks.
"Power supply interruptions place critically ill patients who are dependent on life-support machines at risk. The performance and life span of medical equipment are also negatively affected by power interruptions," he said.
"Smaller healthcare facilities, including primary healthcare clinics, which are not equipped with generator banks, are often left in the dark," he said.
Nemutandani said they were calling for all hospitals, clinics and other health facilities to be spared from load shedding.
"We remain confident that a collective effort on this call will undoubtedly lead to the improvement of our healthcare services."
He said the HPCSA will always strive to give patients good health care.
