The Coalition of Health Workers on Krobo Land has appealed to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to restore power to the area for smooth health delivery.
The health workers who are made up of anaesthetists, doctors, nurses, midwives, laboratory scientists, and pharmacists added that they will be forced to leave work at exactly 4 pm due to the power outages.
The affected health facilities include Atua Government Hospital, St Martins Hospital, Yilo District hospital, Somanya policlinic and the various CHPS and health centres within the affected area.
According to them, the darkness they are plunged into has given room to some criminals and hooligans to rob, harass, and ill-treat some of the health workers who lived in hard-to-reach areas.
The Municipal Health Director, Dr. Irena Offei, expressed worry on how the power cut is affecting health delivery in the area.
“As you have seen the power outage happened on 27th of July at 10:30 pm so we were hoping that the light would be restored the following morning but unfortunately as I talk to you no power has been restored.
“Both Municipalities Yilo Krobo and Lower Manya Krobo have been affected since last Friday and today is the last day. We are doing COVID-19 vaccination so you can imagine our trouble of sending the vaccines in the freezers to nearby facilities which are not that close,” Dr. Irena narrated.
She continued: “Every morning as protocol demands we have to check the temperature of the fridges and we have charge and see if the vaccines are okay and give them to the vaccine team. So every morning the car has to travel to the facility to pick up the vaccine.
“In the office, we are running on a generator and for now all the cost of fuel is taken from the internally generated fund from the facilities. The most dangerous thing is we are running on generators and their machines which can spoil at any point and time.”
The Health Director stated that most facilities now run on generators which is affecting smooth health delivery.
“Assuming you have a case at the theater and the surgery is ongoing and the only generator that you are using for that surgery goes off, what will you do? This is very serious for our hospital and as much as possible they have also stopped using all the theaters and referred all the cases to other health facilities within the region.
“My passionate appeal and plea to the government and to the management of ECG is to restore the power to Yilo Krobo and Lower Manya Krobo and the affected communities. So that we can continue to provide quality health service to our cherished clients and patients.”
Posted by: Emmanuel Romeo Tetteh.
