UE Health Directorate bemoans frequent power outages(Tuesday, March 6, 2012 )

Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bolgatanga Frequent power outages in the Upper East Region have destroyed a number of vaccine refrigerators and cold chain storage equipments in some district health facilities in the region. This problem is compounded by the fact that the region is in the meningitis season where authorities are going all lengths in dealing with outbreaks of CSM in a number of the districts and therefore very essential to have cold chain storage system running uninterrupted. Districts affected damages due to frequent power fluctuations include the Bawku municipality and the Bawku West District. Also affected is the Kassena-Nankana West District where unfortunately, a number of CSM outbreaks have been recorded. The Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. John Koku Awoonor-Williams who confirmed this in an interview at Bolgatanga said the the frequent power outages was hampering efficient service delivery. He said the situation was dire and that the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), a subsidiary of the Volta River Authority needed to act quickly to fix it to ensure stable and reliable power supply to most of the health facilities in the region. “We know that sometimes these challenges are beyond the control of VRA but we need to find out what can be done to have a more reliable power supply”, he added. “The cost of repairs is enormous. Sometimes, these equipments are badly damaged that they are beyond repairs and we have to buy new vaccine fridges”, he said. The Regional Director of Health Services said, as a result of the damages to the vaccine refrigerators, authorities have had to keep vaccines in the regional capital, Bolgatanga where there is a bigger facility and capacity to store vaccines for longer hours even if the lights goes off. This however comes with the challenge of having to transport vaccines to these districts and the fact that the vaccines will not be immediately available at the point where they are most needed. “Because of the nature of our various districts and facilities, we try to keep vaccines and cold chain logistics at the facility level, sub-district level and CHPS compound in order to avoid the situation where officers now have to travel long distances to access these vaccines which under normal circumstances should be readily available in the districts”. “Apart from our district hospitals, all the sub-districts, DHMT offices and CHPS compound do not have back-up systems in terms of stand-by generators. Where we have solar systems, we have encountered a number of challenges. Solar system management for our facilities have not been effective, especially during this time of the year when there is so much dust even though the sun the sun is high”. “The difficulties have to do with the maintenance of the equipments. Most of the solar repairers are based in the southern parts of Ghana and once the system is down, it takes a longer time for them to travel up north to these facilities to deal with the problem”, he said. Dr. Awoonor-Williams therefore reiterated that need for VRA to ensure a stable power supply to forestall further destruction of equipments