The management of Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital AKTH says it is considering alternative sources of power generation to reduce the burden of electricity bills and the high cost of diesel.
The overseeing chief medical director AKTH Professor Auwal Gajida disclosed in Kano.
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According to him, alternative sources of power such as solar can only be a backup, noting that some buildings are on solar and the management decided that they should operate on it during the day time, except when it is necessary to reduce electricity consumption.
Gajida pointed out that with the infrastructures at the hospital, it will be expensive to fully go into solar, saying that the hospital attempted to switch to gas after some companies forwarded a proposal and have gone far with discussion, but later didn’t come forth.
The overseeing chief medical director hinted that the hospital faced a difficult situation after receiving a bill of over one hundred and nineteen million against the N26 to N31 million naira paid monthly due to the increase in electricity tariff.
“It’s certainly not easy because we don’t know how to cope with the cost. This has raised a challenge for us as to how to raise the money. In the first instance, it is good to know that the hospital is a social service sector, not a revenue-generating sector”
He maintained that the hospital is charging for some little markup to cater for inflation and some consumables procured, saying that patients would be affected if charges were increased to cover the electricity bill.
“After paying that amount we came back to see how resources can be mobilized because the overhead that comes from government is grossly insufficient to address the electricity bills. So considering review of charges on patients is one of the options, but we are also looking at options to see where else we are not using the electricity judiciously which we will address to reduce electricity consumption,”
Gajida noted that as a result of the essential services of dealing with lives and the facilities used in the hospital, they cannot afford not to be on constant electricity supply.
He appealed to the federal government and relevant stakeholders to do everything possible to make medical facilities affordable to Nigerians.