The current power blackouts in Uganda have forced medical workers in Eastern Uganda to use candles and lantern lamps on night shifts at Soroti Regional Hospital. KC James Odong reports.
Dr. Joseph Epodoi, acting director of the hospital, said that the blackouts had made their work very difficult.
“It’s unfair for the hospital to be load shaded. People who handle power generation should treat a hospital like a place for saving lives. We need power all the time. Before we never used to have load shading and this made us relax not, to budget for fuel for a generator. We are now being forced to use lamps and candles but these are just for lighting you cannot operate on a patient using them or put a patient on a drip. The fridges at the mortuary cannot operate without power because they use power to freeze human remains. When there is no power we cannot take any dead body to the mortuary,” he said.
Dr Epodoi said the most affected wards in at the hospital include the children’s, maternity and out patients’ wards.
According to Benon Mutambi, the acting chief executive of the Electricity Regulatory Agency (ERA) , the power regulator in Uganda, the crisis in the power sector is due to an increase in fuel prices and the weakening of the Ugandan shilling against the dollar.
Mutambi said that there is going to be no load shedding during day time; instead this will occur during night hours when people are sleeping. He explained that this decision was reached after it was discovered that load shedding during the day affects the economy more harshly than it does at night when the majority of people are sleeping.
The bed capacity of Soroti Regional Referral Hospital, commonly known as Soroti Hospital, was quoted as being 250 in October 2000. But now an estimated 800 patients, mainly women and children are crowded at the health facility with most of them sleeping on the floor or under the beds due to lack of space.
The hospital is located in the town of Soroti, in the Soroti District of Eastern Uganda. It is the referral hospital for the districts of Amuria, Bukedea, Kaberamaido, Katakwi, Serere Kumi and Soroti.
Soroti Hospital is a public hospital, funded by the Uganda Ministry of Health, meaning general care in the hospital is free. It is one of 13 regional referral hospitals in Uganda.
