No emergency power at Effia Nkwanta Hospital as burglars ransack power generators

Two standby power generators at the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital, the only referral center of the Western Region, has damaged by burglars. Sources say, thieves invaded the plant house and took away some vital component of the main power plant, which is believed powers a larger portion of facilities in the hospital.

With this defect, the hospital is unable to switch to alternative power supply, when there’s a power outage on the national grid. The situation has remained unresolved for the past two weeks.

The situation has triggered anxiety not only with administrators of the hospital but to patients and patrons. Medical supplies and other installations that require stable and reliable supply may be severely affected, Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Joseph Tambir told Skyy News.

He however indicated that authorities are working around the clock to fix the generators.

“We do have two standby generators and the main one is very huge that it can even power some adjourning communities, so electricity has never been a problem in the hospital but over two weeks ago, we woke up to an unfortunate incident, some people had gone into the generator house, cut off wires to the mains and they even went as far as the second standby generator and did the same thing. So, we quickly engaged our engineers who have also discovered the mother board of the generator has been tempered with,” Dr. Joseph Tambir to Nana Yaw Kumi of Skyy Power Fm in an interview.

Elaborating on the risks the situation if not resolved immediately could have on medical services, Dr Tambir cried the repercussions could be very dire.

“Most of our operations are dependent on electricity and so when that happens, there is nothing that can go on because all the equipment in theater need electricity to function, now we don’t use folders everything is kept on computers and they need electricity to function, our laboratories so when these things happen, we are at a standstill, no work can go on,” he noted.

In the meantime, the hospital has made arrangements with the electricity company of Ghana to alternate their power supply lines, whiles phasing out any of their electrical lines from the national grid.