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Kitgum, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Kitgum General Hospital management have decried the persistent power outage experienced in the region.
For months, the region has had endless power outage with Kitgum District, in particular, experiencing almost daily blackout.
Bezy Omoya, the Kitgum General Hospital’s Senior Administrator says that the power blackouts have left the facility in crisis and affected efficient health service delivery to patients.
He notes that the hospital is recently been footing heavy cost on running generator to power essential machines at the facility.
Omoya says the hospital’s generator consumes seven litres of diesel fuel hourly adding that it requires for between 60 to 80 litres of fuel which barely runs for 12 hours despite their meagre budget allocation.
Quarterly the facility receives 13 million shillings for fuelling ambulances, generator and general administration. Omoya, however, says sometimes the money is fully utilized before the end of the quarter prompting them to get fuel on debt from service providers.
He notes that they have been forced to halt operations of some hospital machines and ration power supply in situations of emergency in the theatre, sterilization of surgical equipment, operating laboratory machines. Others are x-ray, dental ward and ultrasound machine.
Hourly, according to Omoya, the generator consumes 7 litres of diesel fuel translating to approximately 27,000 shillings spent hourly on fuel, with the cost reaching about 324,000 shillings if it’s run for 12 hours.
Besides the generator costs, the hospital is also continuing to grapple with exorbitant power bills according to Omoya.
For instance, during the months of July to September, power distributor Umeme Ltd issued a Bill of 16.7 million shillings out of which only 15 million shillings has been paid.
Moses Kilama, a resident of Mucwini trading centre says he recently failed to get X-ray services for chest check-up when he arrived at the facility in the afternoon because the generator had been shut down.
He notes that he had to wait for the services the next morning forcing him to rent accommodation within Kitgum Municipality.
Early this month, the Umeme Ltd Branch manager for Gulu and Kitgum Tom Awuzu while meeting a section of disgruntled leaders in Gulu municipality says the power outage will still persist. Awuzu cited single source of power transmission, harsh weather and vandalism on the electric equipment.
Annually, Kitgum general Hospital spends about 119 million on fuel and electricity [energy], constituting about 41.3 percent of the overall budgetary allocation of 288 million shillings from government.
The persistent power blackout in the region is expected to be solved once the 42 megawatts Aswa 2 hydroelectric power station under construction in Angagura Sub-county in Pader District is completed by next month.
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