After nearly a week in the dark due to a widespread power outage, there was finally some good news for Nelson Mandela Bay residents on Tuesday as the municipality announced that the electricity supply would slowly be restored.
However, with no power to operate essential medical equipment, the outage has exposed the silent crisis that unfolded in homes, hospitals and frail-care facilities, as emergency services scrambled to assist those most at risk.
Bester Medical and Towing Services director Wesley Bester said he had made his ambulances available to assist with urgent medical needs during the power outage.
He said people who relied on concentrated oxygen tanks were the most vulnerable.
“The people who are on concentrated oxygen [tanks] can’t use them due to the electricity outage and then it becomes an issue.
“We either need to rush them to hospital or help them at home.
“Not everyone needs to go to hospital because they are sick, they are just depending on oxygen so that’s why we started offering the assessments for them to advise if they are stable or if they need to go to hospital.”
Bester said it had offered needy residents services on a 24/7 basis.
“Under normal circumstances, if you have to call one of these oxygen suppliers you need to fill in forms and do applications and open accounts and it takes ages and they are only open during office hours.”
He said the company had helped 14 people with oxygen over the weekend, including one who had to be admitted to hospital.
“We just decided to put something together to help the people out there and bring some peace of mind to them and assist them with oxygen, which has been helping a lot.
“Even last night [Monday], at 2am, we had patients whose machines couldn’t function because they had no electricity and we sorted them out.”
In Helenvale, 58-year-old Marius Connelley had been without oxygen for six days.
“I have colon cancer and I need to have urgent surgery,” he said.
“My lungs are not healthy enough to be put under anaesthetic so I need this oxygen to clear my lungs so that I can have this surgery.
“I am struggling to breathe, and all I can do is wait for the electricity to come back on.”
When The Herald visited Connelley, deputy mayor Gary van Niekerk was there.
“I am in Helenvale to help with the water crisis,” he said.
“The water trucks don’t come to this side of Helenvale so I came to assist the area with water.”
Van Niekerk was asked by members of the community to help Connelley, and he contacted Eskom to see if it could assist.
“I told them I am not leaving until this house has electricity.”
Eskom trucks arrived while Van Niekerk was talking to The Herald and the workers got to work restoring the power.
Eastern Cape health department spokesperson Siyanda Manana confirmed that Dora Nginza, Livingstone and Provincial hospitals were not affected by the outage because their automatic generators had provided electricity, allowing the facilities to run as usual.
He said most community health centres were also running on generators.
“Our facilities in the northern areas were severely affected by [lack of] water and electricity, mostly West End and the mobile obstetrics unit.
“Other affected facilities were Linton Grange, Walmer, Gqeberha, Gelvandale, Booysen Park, Chatty, Helenvale, Malabar, Isolomzi and Kamvelihle.”
Manana said Bay municipal trucks and Gift of the Givers had transported water to the affected facilities.
The municipality announced on Tuesday that it would begin restoring electricity to the affected areas in a phased approach in the afternoon.
“The electricity and energy department, together with the appointed service provider, has completed all major construction work.”
Testing had been concluded successfully.
“The power will be restored in a phased approach.”
Mayor Babalwa Lobishe thanked residents and businesses for their patience and co-operation.
“Our teams have worked around the clock under challenging conditions to restore this critical infrastructure,” she said.
Large parts of the Bay were plunged into darkness on Thursday afternoon due to a power outage caused by vandalism and high winds which led to the collapse of the Chatty–Bloemendal and Chatty–Rowallan Park 132kV power line towers.
The Herald
