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Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane must act urgently to secure healthcare facilities in Gauteng against electricity blackouts.

Today we are here in Soweto to donate an electricity generator to Protea South clinic where patients are being turned away due to load-shedding.

While load-shedding hurts our economy and causes jobs to be lost, here in Protea South, blackouts are literally costing lives.

Residents here protested over 6 months ago calling for a stable power supply at the clinic. But like the cries of so many people, it has fallen on the deaf ears of Zuma’s ANC in government.

Elsewhere in Gauteng even larger healthcare facilities, like Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital, are also suffering from power failures and dysfunctional generators.

Today we demand that the Premier takes urgent action by:

- Ensuring that every healthcare facility in Gauteng has a generator and sufficient fuel stock to maintain power during load-shedding

- Providing portable generators to facilities with vaccine stocks and medication that require refrigeration

- Establishing a Disaster Management Centre where emergency services, traffic management and communications can be co-ordinated during blackouts

If the Premier really cared about the people of Gauteng she wouldn’t have been looking for publicity at the Oscar Pistorious trial this week.

Instead the Premier should have ensured that generators were delivered to every public facility in need.

Power cuts, and a lack of political will in this province, force people in places like Protea South to seek medical care at other facilities. It is often too far away and too late.

It is unacceptable and negligent that the Premier has not already put these measures in place for the sake of the lives of public healthcare patients.

Where the DA governs we secure every single clinic and hospital against electricity blackouts.

I am running for Premier in Gauteng with a commitment to ensure that no essential service is ever stopped  because of an electricity blackout.

The DA is already implementing these strategies successfully where we govern.

The people of Gauteng, from here in Protea South to every other corner of the province, deserve the same level of service.