Authorities of the St Anne’s Hospital in Damongo have threatened to shut down the facility if power is not restored in good time.
The Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) on Thursday, May 4, 2023, disconnected power to the facility which serves as the Municipal hospital due to unpaid debt.
According to the authorities of the hospital, it is the responsibility of the Government through the Ministry of Finance to pay electricity for the hospital as it is not allowed to bill patients for electricity.
The medical director of the hospital, Dr. Nelson Agboadoh, disclosed that a communique from the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) which indicates an agreement with the government through the finance and energy ministries and the power distributors not to disconnect Health facilities was disregarded by NEDCO.
“The facility itself does not pay electricity bills, we submit the bills to the government to pay, so we don’t bill patients for electricity. Recently we were told we owe so much so on 27th April, CHAG wrote to all facilities that the association, government, and power distributors to exempt us from the exercise but NEDCO in Damongo went ahead and disconnected us,” he said on Citi News.
Dr. Agboadoh warned that if power is not restored, they will be forced to shut the facility.
“If the electricity is not connected the hospital will come to a halt, we can’t do anything because we can’t sustain the buying of fuel, so we will all return to wherever we came from to work [because] there is nothing to do here,” he added.
ECG embarked on a one-month-long revenue mobilization exercise to recover GH¢5.7 billion from individuals and firms that have failed to pay for power.
The exercise saw the disconnection of customers who failed to pay their bills, and the exercise affected some government institutions.