The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi has been spending about GHC60, 000 daily on diesel to fuel its generators to power the facility, according to authorities there.
Ghana has been battling with inconsistent power supply following challenges with some of its power generating plants.
[contextly_sidebar id=”CqfYCSvHFUjXiaw3I1kksakgx25qYwYV”]The situation has compelled the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to shed load in the country.
The Public Relations Officer of KATH, Kwame Frimpong who bemoaned the situation in an interview with Citi News said the cost of fueling the generators is negatively impacting on the revenue generated by the hospital.
He said the hospital with the support of it’s board and the Ministry of Health acquired four heavy-duty power plants with a total capacity of 2800KVA and that “whenever we have a power outage from ECG for a period of about four to five hours we have to spend about GHc10, 000 on diesel.”
“That’s quite expensive,” he lamented.
The PRO said the operations of the hospital have not been affected by the load shedding exercise, but added that, “we cannot take it [fuel money] from patients so it becomes an additional cost to our operations.”
“Even when circumstances beyond their [ECG] control and they have to cut supply of power to us, we’ve made alternative arrangement that give us power when supply from the ECG is no longer available…This backup system is enough to supply our power needs,” he added.
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana