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The electricity supply in the country worsened in the last couple of months, it not only affected business people, it also affects several patients in hospitals.
Fully equipped hospitals require stable electricity supply to operate their machines regularly, such as X-ray and scanning facilities, life-saving machines, oxygen masks and theatres where emergency and unscheduled surgeries are performed.
The morgue is another key section that requires constant power for the freezers; and the store room.
Electricity is also required for communication, computing and to refrigerate medical supplies and vaccines. Without these indispensable tools and consumables, the fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria cannot be won in sub-Saharan Africa.
A health service provider, Dr. Yemi Okun, said the poor electricity situation in many hospitals in Nigeria has fostered the thriving of intermediary agencies whose services provide the necessary support for many hospitals on referrals and are making a huge fortune.
He said some of these agencies are key partners with the Federal Ministry of Health to preserve vaccines and drugs that could perish if not properly refrigerated.
Our reporter who visited some hospitals to assess their power supply situation discovered that most of those visited had their power generators running even in day time due to power outage.
Some people in need of medical care or laboratory tests, are often times referred to other hospitals when their own hospitals have no electricity supply. This usually involves commuting and wasting precious hours on simple diagnostic activities.
Asked why such things happen when the hospital is meant to be fully equipped, a nurse who craved anonymity said it was not for lack of equipment but the dismal power supply situation.
She told Daily Trust: “The World Health Organisation (WHO) through its intervention contributed some of those scanning and testing equipment but we only use the ones that do not require much power.”
Another medical official said despite the dedicated power connection the hospital has, electricity supply in the place was not always constant.
He said the hospital enjoyed a maximum of 10 hours on good days and often none on other days.
The National Hospital Abuja is another place where electricity supply is expected to be constant being a tertiary health institution and close to the seat of government, however, patients have been suffering from poor or delayed treatment due to power outages.
The solar power option
Many hospitals are embracing renewable energy technology to address the challenge of power outage.
Staff of the Medical Centre, Mararaba Guruku, Nasarawa State, said they spent a lot to provide solar lighting for the wards, the theatre and offices, adding that it has helped them to operate with ease at night.
About 28 months ago, former President Goodluck Jonathan commissioned the Operation Light-up Rural Nigeria (OLRN) solar projects in three communities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The projects consist of solar street lights and solar panels fitted to over 1,000 households in Durumi, Waru and Shape.
An interesting thing about this is the dedicated solar connection to the Primary Health Care (PHC) centre in Durumi. The clinic has been empowered to provide basic lighting, fan and other low energy demanding services. Its drug storage part too is capable with the solar-powered freezer donated to it, the community leader, Jarumi Shakpara, said.
Recently, the agency picked Uke Community in Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, from among the many communities affected by the energy crisis. The community, it said, had a population of 10,000 depending on a single public cottage hospital.
It said its intervention has helped with the installation of a 1.5Kwa solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, with about 7Kwh battery bank installed in the hospital. The result is that patients who need surgery are now receiving attention. Over 50 patients are attended to daily and care is provided during the night due to improved lighting.
“Before, we were not doing surgery at all, but since about a month now, we have done close to 15 surgeries,” Dr. Makpa Habu Hassan, one of the doctors at the hospital was recently quoted by the agency.
Outage blamed on poor grid
The nationwide outage has been blamed on the power grid which dropped in power generation to below 3,000 megawatts (mw) previously and less than 2,000mw recently.Source: Daily Trust
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