NEDCo Justifies Power Cut To St. Anne’s Hospital Despite Death Of Babies

Management of the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) has justified the company’s decision to cut power to the St. Anne’s Hospital in Damongo over a GH¢4.8 million debt.

According to the corporate communications manager of NEDCo, Maxwell Kotoka, the hospital disregarded the notice given to facilities under NEDCo’s jurisdiction and showed no commitment when the disconnection exercise was announced.

“Needing the power which is so critical to their operation, where they have challenges, they should have engaged us, but they didn’t do that. And I heard them say that they owed GH¢4 million. They actually owe us GH¢4.8 million, and before we embarked on the disconnection, we made a public announcement that we were coming and said if you have any difficulty, you should take advantage of the notice before we get there,” Mr Kotoka said on Citi News.

He added that “the hospital will testify that when we even came to disconnect, the disconnection wasn’t our best option, we wanted to engage on what we can do or what will be done about the continuous debt, but that didn’t yield results and so if there is a discussion on how to address this critical issue, why not?”

Two babies died at the St. Anne’s Hospital, leaving three more in critical condition on Monday, May 22, due to the power cut.

NEDCo disconnected the power supply to the facility for the second time in a month due to its failure to settle an outstanding electricity bill of over four million Ghana cedis.

According to the management, the babies died due to the inability of the hospital to test for compatible blood to transfuse to the babies.