The Chairman of the Committee of Chief Medical Directors of Federal Tertiary Institutions, Prof. Emem Bassey, has said the greatest challenge hospitals face in the country is lack or inadequate power supply.
Bassey, who made this known in an interview with The PUNCH, said each tertiary hospital in the country spends an estimated N30m on power supply from the national grid and an estimated N40m to buy diesel to power the hospital monthly.
Going by this figure, the 70 teaching hospitals, Federal Medical Centres and specialist hospitals in the country spend 4.9bn on electricity monthly.
He said while the deregulation of the Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, is good for the economy, there is a need for interventions from the government on power supply in the hospitals.
“A few hospitals are connected to the national grid but even those ones, it appears that we are paying in maximum demand. What hospitals are being charged is a lot higher. “Hospitals like the University College Hospital, Ibadan, end up spending about 70m on power monthly and an average hospital is spending about N30m to 40m monthly for the ones connected to the national grid.
“Hospitals that are not connected to the national grid depend on diesel. For instance, at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, Akwa Ibom, I spend a minimum of N10m on diesel weekly. The price of diesel has not changed much because the price has been deregulated ab initio. Anybody supplying diesel will have to make a profit, then you pay taxes, so we have to pay considerably a lot more for diesel.
“Now that petrol has been deregulated, and we run a fleet of cars and ambulances and all these things have affected our operational costs.
The deregulation of petrol is good for the economy but the only thing is that it means that the operational costs are higher and this will be transmitted to the patients,” Bassey said.
The don said the challenge of power supply also affects health care service delivery across the country.
“If you spend up to 70m on power in a month, how much do you generate? Without power, there will be limited services. In my hospital, you cannot put on the main generator until 10am and then you put it off by 4pm and put it on by 7pm again. In those intervals, it affects services, certain services cannot come on until the main generator comes on, so it is a major challenge.”
