From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
After 14 months of power outage, staff and patients of the Sabon Tasha General Hospital, Kaduna, can now ‘breathe’ following the restoration of electricity in the secondary health facility serving thousands of locals.
The Sun Nigeria has been monitoring and reporting the power outage traced to a faulty transformer that supplies electricity to the facility since it was uncovered earlier this year.
The facility has been out of public power supply between August and September 2022, leading pregnant women who have hitherto registered for anti-natal care in the facility to seek help elsewhere.
A source in the facility who spoke in confidence said, “About two weeks ago, nurses embarked on an indefinite strike over a poor working environment due to a power outage and the news reports emanating from this hospital have not been favourable to the government.
“But along the line, the strike lasted only about four days after the nurses reached an agreement with concerned stakeholders that the issue would be addressed.
“On Saturday, October 14, the power was restored after a new transformer was brought to the facility.
“As we speak, you can hear the fan working. All of us are happy. We have so many patients now than we can even handle. Many of our regular visitors including pregnant women who have run away from here are now returning.
“We commend the efforts of journalists and civil society groups that have been on top of this concern. We are grateful to the government too for putting us back on track”, the source said.
Another source claimed that it was the authority of Chikun Local Government Area where the facility is located that brought the new transformer to the facility.
“I learned it was the leadership of Chikun Council that brought the transformer. If that is the case, then, we need to push for complete local government autonomy so that the people at the grassroots can benefit more from the local councils”, she said.
When contacted, the Head of Corporate Communication, Kaduna Electric, Mr. Abdulazeez Abdullahi said the restoration of power in the facility means that the State government must have done the needful as the name of the facility was hitherto not included in the list of Kaduna State agencies submitted to Kaduna Electric by the concerned company.
As of the time of filing this report, both the state and local government authorities have not made an official statement on the development.