There are more than 170 million people living in Nigeria. The
unreliability of electricity from the national grid has led to the overuse of
numerous atmosphere polluting generators for electrical energy. Though, rich in
myriad natural resources, which create billions of dollars of revenue,
alternative forms of energy like solar, are still not widely used as Nigeria
has the world’s seventh largest oil reserves.
Several Primary Healthcare centers (PHC), in Abuja run
without light while some are not even connected to the national grid. This has
led to a drastic decline in the number of patients using these PHCs in communities
where they are located.
A look at Dakwa Primary Health Center who has been off grid for
years and had no source of electric power supply until today, are rejoicing
over 2 years of constant solar power supply donated and installed by Vaya
Energy company as part of the company’s corporate social responsibility.
Vaya Energy took up the task of designing, financing and
installing the solar powered system that now provides electricity to Dakwa PHC,
24 hours a day without interruption.
“Our Primary
Health Center commissioned in 2014 has been running for years without light up
until 2016. That is why we are
celebrating two years of constant solar power supply.”
“Before now
we used to go to a nearby community called Juwah, to store our vaccines and go
back there to pick them up to administer on immunization days which often leads
to the early closure of our PHC before its original time and not many people
were coming here either from the community or its environs” Dakwa PHC Community
Health Extension Worker (CHEW) matron disclosed.
Located in Dakwa Community, off Deidei - Zuba Express way
under the Abuja Municipal Area Council, Dakwa PHC does not currently have a
nurse except for a junior CHEW, 2 volunteers and is still not connected to the
national grid which is the root cause of the declining number of patients
accessing it and if any visited, it was because they had no money and therefore
were helpless.
The CHEW in charge of the Dakwa PHC said that they had to
depend on rechargeable lamps during child deliveries and buy water from local water
vendors called “mai-ruwa” for all their day to day water need. She went on
further to state that “Dakwa PHC was set up to cater for four communities
including Dakwa, Sarki, Kokoife and Gofina but members from these communities
seldomly visits.”
Their lack electric power supply story changed in April 2016 when VAYA
Energy installed the 12 panel solar powered system exclusively for them and
commissioned by the former Abuja Municipal Area Council Chairman, Hon. Micah
Jiba.
It has been 2 years since the commissioning and there has
never been any power cut, this has resulted to a large number of patients
turning up at the PHC and according to the Matron in charge, “We have moved
from zero patient to about 100 patients turning up daily”.
Primary health Centers are meant to be the bedrock of public
health services in the country and was adopted by Nigeria and other member
countries of World Health Organization as the basic structural and functional
unit of public health delivery system.
The health care systems in Nigeria has been trailed by
multiple challenges and Dakwa story is not different. Locals in the
community blame the government for not connecting them to the national
grid as the government only come during election period make campaign promises
to secure their votes but never do anything.
Qualitative healthcare is dependent on power, whether it is a
simple vaccine cold-chain system or blood banking. Power has an immense role to play in
healthcare delivery in this 21st century so much so that electricity is termed
to be as the ‘most vital of all infrastructure services’ because without it,
most other services will not function.
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