Members of staff and patients at the University College Hospital (UCH) in Ibadan, Oyo State, are in a jubilant mood after the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) reconnected the facility.
The premier hospital was disconnected three weeks ago owing to the non-payment of electricity bill, plunging UCH into darkness.
But on Thursday, the Public Relations Officer of IBEDC, Busolami Tunwase, confirmed that UCH has been reconnected.
She said UCH has paid a little above 10 percent of the outstanding bill it owes IBEDC, and made a plan to gradually defray the balance.
The University College Hospital was disconnected on the 19th of March over an unpaid outstanding bill of N495m.
It has since then been in darkness, resulting in hardship for patients and staff of the hospital who had to grapple with working under a lot of stress without power supply.
Chairman of the Association of Resident Doctors (UCH), John Oladapo, lamented that working in darkness is hard.
“Imagine a nurse looking for a vein to set a line using a torchlight or phone to do that,” he said.
The prolonged power outage led the workers’ unions in UCH to take a stand on scaling down their work hours.
On April 3, the coordinator of the Joint Action Committee in UCH, Olaadayo Olabampe, sent out a circular that night shifts shall be suspended until electricity gets restored and that has been the situation.
He said that the workers would continue to work between 8 am to 4 pm until power is restored to the hospital
“This is 3rd week of total blackout in UCH. Normally we don’t have 24-hour light; we back up with alternative sources in most cases. With no light, people are not finding it convenient to work. They cannot perform at an optimal level in this kind of condition,” he added.
A lot of compromises came into play as UCH earlier said IBEDC insisted on taking at least N250million as the first installment from the N459million. Both parties appeared to have shifted ground and renegotiated leading to the latest reconnection.
For now, power has been restored after payment of just above ten percent of what is owed by the hospital. IBEDC says a workable plan has been drawn up to defray the rest and hopes UCH will keep its promise to pay the balance.