Outage threatens multi-billion naira equipment at UCH

The National President of Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria, Dr. Ade Tade, on Thursday, urged the Federal Government to improve on power supply to specialists and teaching hospitals in the country.
He said poor power supply was threatening the multi-billion naira equipment supplied by VAMED to some hospitals.
Tade stated this during a facility tour of some state-of-the-art equipment installed at the University College Hospital by the Federal Government between 2002 and 2006 at a cost of about N1.3bn.
An Austrian firm, Vamed Engineering, was contracted by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration to install some modern equipment and upgrade new ones at the hospital and 14 other ones in the country for efficient service delivery.
Tade was told by a board member of the hospital, Dr. Babatunde Philips, that the major problem confronting the tertiary hospital, especially as it related to the effective use of the facility was epileptic power supply.
He urged the Federal Government to channel its resources into the generation of 60,000 megawatts instead of its current plans to generate 6,000 MW, arguing that the energy demand went beyond that capacity.
He said, “We are lucky to have one of our members as a board member here in UCH and he has educated us on the step UCH has taken. They want to bring in IPP. It is a pity that the Federal Government didn’t have that foresight.
“I an not referring to the current administration but the past government. They didn’t have foresight to know that power demands increases with population, with development.
“When European countries had this foresight, they started building nuclear power plants because those ones generate la arge quantity of power.
“We too should have had that foresight. If we didn’t build nuclear power plant, we should have built more power plants over time to cope with the demand for development.
“Now, they need to really work hard. Not this 6,000MW they are targeting. By the time they provide 6,000MW maybe we are already needing 50,000MW.
“So, they need to target something big and work towards it. That is how to solve this problem.”
Some of the facilities visited by the AGPMPN members were those at the Radiology Department; the Magnetic Resonance Imaging; the Intensive Care Unit; Cardiology Unit; the 36-room Private Suites of the hospital; and the Hematology Department; among others.
Tade expressed satisfaction with the facilities in the hospital, promising to collaborate with the foremost teaching hospital to ensure quality health care services in the country