The Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) has already initiated efforts, in collaboration with the Department of Health and State-owned utility Eskom, to identify 213 hospitals for exclusion from loadshedding to ensure that they have continuous power supply, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has said.

Of the 213 hospitals, 76 had already been excluded from loadshedding, while work to exempt a further 46 was under way, he said in a May 29 media statement.

“We are continuously working to determine what other facilities can be isolated from the integrated grid. In certain instances, it is not possible,” Gordhan conceded.

This comes after the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ruled earlier in May that all hospitals, clinics, schools and police stations should be exempted from loadshedding.

In the ruling, Judge Norman Davis ordered Gordhan to "take all reasonable steps" within 60 days to ensure public health establishments, State schools and the South African Police Service were not affected by loadshedding.

The judgment included the caveat that, where it would be impossible to isolate embedded buildings from the grid and therefore spare them from loadshedding, Gordhan had to ensure that generators and other alternate energy supplies were implemented to ensure uninterrupted power.

“It is regrettable that, as a country, we do not have an adequate supply of electricity. This is the reason we have loadshedding and our efforts are targeted at ensuring that our generation capacity is urgently increased.

“The loadshedding that is affecting families, schools, healthcare and business facilities . . . is not wilful, and it is not in the absence of continued and determined efforts to mitigate the negative impacts of loadshedding,” Gordhan added.

Gordan said the DPE’s decision to appeal the recent North Gauteng High Court ruling on loadshedding was about ensuring that current and ongoing efforts to stabilise the national grid were not compromised, owing to the ongoing need to balance supply and demand for electricity.