Eskom debacle: health care risks, frustrations climb.

Surgeons and physicians were fuming as their lives and those of their patients were turned upside down, the latter often threatened, although no patient deaths were reported at the time of writing. Like mine managers losing tens of millions of rands daily as the crisis constricted the lifeblood of South Africa’s economy, they cited unpredictability, not the actual power shortage, as the reason for halting operations. Hospitals refused to run elective surgery lists because of inaccurate power outage schedules and sudden blackouts or ‘dips’ that daily put them at the mercy of back-up generator systems and attendant power delays, creating unacceptable risks.