The Management of the Yilo Krobo and Lower Manya Krobo Municipal Health Directorates in the Eastern Region have warned of a possible public health emergency if power is not restored to their districts.
The two Municipalities since last week have been without power amid a dispute over the installation of prepaid meters.
Due to that, the situation is affecting the provision of healthcare, as they have petitioned the government and the power distribution company to take immediate steps to restore electricity.
According to a report by the PURC, Customers in the Krobo land including the health facilities owe ECG over GHC100million in accumulated bills.
In the Yilo Krobo Municipal Directorate, for example, the power outage has caused the relocation of municipal Cold Chain Equipment, which includes vaccine fridges and freezers for ice packs.
The Directorate is also spending GH¢500 a day to power its generator.
“Ongoing COVID-19 vaccination is also affected as a result vaccination team, district and sub-district supervisors are not able to charge their mobile phones and tablets, therefore not been able to enter data and monitoring/supervisory reports,” the statement said.
The Municipal hospital has spent GH¢10,975 to power its diesel generator so far, according to the statement.
“The hospital is barely three months old with very little capital and a host of challenges.”
At the Somanya polyclinic, the petition said the only generator plant “which was donated by ECG to Somanya polyclinic has been taken back without any explanation by ECG, and therefore the facility has no alternative source of power.”
“The power outage has affected all aspects of clinical and public health care in the facility. The most affected areas are maternity units, laboratory services, in-patients, vaccine fridges, and administration.”
The health directorates have warned that the high cost of fuel incurred in powering generator sets is not sustainable, “and we may not be able to sustain it to provide the quality health care services as expected.”
They have thus appeared to the government and management of ECG to restore electric power supply to all health facilities within the affected areas “in the shortest possible time to avert a possible public health emergency.”
Below is the petition:
BY Daniel Bampoe