Johannesburg - The Young Nurses Indaba Trade Union (YNITU) has called for Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter to be fired. This comes as the country has been plunged into yet another bout of stages 6 and 5 of load shedding over the past few days.
The national power utility had promised to downgrade the rolling blackouts to Stage 2 on Sunday. However, on Saturday, 10 December, Eskom said the escalation to Stage 5 was due to an unusually high demand for electricity.
A generating unit each at Hendrina, Kendal, and Kriel Power Stations has also broken down, which prompted the Stage 5 rolling blackouts.
The severity of these blackouts has caused an uproar across the country, with the union calling for de Ruyter’s head.
"YNITU demands that Mr Andre de Ruyter must be fired because his gross incompetence is costing lives.
"Electricity blackouts have a dire impact because it means life-saving equipment such as ventilators stop working," the union said in a statement. The union has called for hospitals to be exempted from load shedding, adding that patients are badly affected by blackouts.
This call has also been made by the DA and other sectors of society in the past.
"Patients are dying because there is no electricity. Only 76 hospitals out of 213 hospitals are exempt from load shedding, and we have at least 3000 state-run clinics that are also not exempt from load shedding.
"At the same time, not all hospitals have generators, and some do not even have money to buy diesel to power up the generator," the union said.
The trade union for nurses added that the minister of health, Dr Joe Phaahla, had confirmed that hospitals are unable to keep up with paying exorbitant prices for diesel, which is another factor contributing to the crisis.
"The minister of health, Dr Joe Phaahla, confirmed that the department had used up its budget for diesel purchases. This means doctors and nurses must perform miracles in order to keep patients alive when the lights go off.
"This is backed up by an article published recently in News24, which details the impact that excessive power cuts have on Lenasia South Hospital. The grim scenario that is outlined in this article is exactly what is experienced in many public hospitals all over the country every single day," the union added.
More than anything, the union said the energy crisis has a ripple effect on the country’s economy, which is being affected by load shedding.
"Patients are dying simply because De Ruyter is unable to keep the lights on, which is a basic requirement of the job of the CEO of Eskom."
"At the same time, the economy is collapsing, and as YNITU, we are asking ourselves, why is de Ruyter being protected from being held accountable for his failures? Is it because de Ruyter is white — is that why no one wants to do the obvious thing and fire him? If a healthcare worker was as incompetent as de Ruyter, that worker would have been fired long ago," it said.
The Star