Healthcare
Placards in the air. Angry faces stare back at one another. Perspiration is both a sign of being alive and the frustration of it for over 100 days in persistent power outage at the foremost teaching hospital. Nurses are now accustomed to using mobile phones as torchlight for navigating the agonising hospital wards. Power generators assembled outside some facilities have formed a symphony of unwanted gritty noise.
Panning the camera away, the protesters are not faceless. They are largely the members of University of Ibadan Medical Students’ Association (UIMSA) sounding a strong warning to the Nigerian government over the persistent power outage at the University College Hospital (UCH). In a press statement issued by the association, the relevant authorities have been given 48 hours to restore power at UCH which has been plunged into darkness for over 100 days.
Since November 2024 when the trouble started, many had resorted to self-help. Private individuals bring inverters and rechargeable fans to the wards to care for their relatives.
The outrage online is loud. A tweep @omotundeolami wrote on X: “The fact that a hospital of UCH’s calibre- Nigeria’s foremost tertiary hospital- is left in darkness for over 100 days is not just an infrastructure failure but a complete disregard for human lives. Having to protest for this is extremely wild.”
Another tweep @drjaameh reflected the same sentiment: “The plight of families shouldering healthcare burdens in UCH Ibadan is a poignant call for urgent reforms. This neglect demands we hold our leaders accountable and unite in advocacy.”
The medical students, who are trained at the teaching hospital, complained that the lack of electricity had severely disrupted academic and clinical activities, as well as their general welfare of staff, patients and visitors.
An online publication titled “Black, White, Bleak: An Anthology of Anger over UCH’s 100th Day Blackout” has been published in response to the agony of living in darkness by members of UIMSA Press.
Hence, the demonstration, which kicked off on Monday February 10 with slogans such as “We are tired of 100 days of darkness, “Save UCH,” “Doctors in Darkness,” is meant to demand immediate government intervention and restoration of power at the facility.
It was gathered that the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) disconnected UCH from the power grid in November 2024, citing unpaid debts. UCH is said to owe over N400million in electricity bills.
Hence, the protesters are also demanding for the implementation of a 50% tariff reduction that the Minister of power reportedly promised the hospital.
In response to this frantic call to action, the Minister of Power, Bayo Adelabu and the IBEDC management held a meeting at UCH over the lingering power outage during the protest.
“We have resolved with IBEDC to restore UCH and its environment to the National Grid within 24-48 hours. The time is to ensure they take necessary precautions,” Adelabu said while addressing the protesters.
“We have to do a proper circulation to identify who uses what power. UCH may seem like a single territory but there are multiple independent power consumers. College of Medicine, nothing less than six banks, pharmacies, Falase, ABH and residential areas. Those are the root causes and we must separate them.
“We have bought a new transformer so we can determine UCH’s own power consumption. Should we pay for business centres? By the time we separate it, everybody will pay for what they consume. This problem is not from FG, we are just intervening between the service provider, IBEDC, and the customer, UCH.”
Whether power has been restored or not is unconfirmed at the time of publication.
