Power outage: UNIMEDTH denies extortion of patients, family

The management of the University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital (UNIMEDTH), Ondo, on Thursday denied extorting families of patients admitted at the hospital to pay for power generation to carry out its operations.

Denying the allegations in a statement signed by Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Oluwole Ige, who said the allegations was designed to embarrass the hospital, saying the hospital never demanded such.

Ige, who explained that even though there was a power outage and the hospital was battling with power supply challenges but denied the allegation of asking patients to contribute money for fuel.

Ige said “the purported story of patients being extorted to get diesel before treatment or requested to buy diesel for the hospital is completely false.

“No patient was asked to get diesel. We had a power outage yesterday between the hours of 6 am and 6 pm thereabout. That patients were asked to buy diesel, is not correct. We have not had a power supply from the Mains electricity supply for over a week.

“Our diesel reserve was supposed to last till Friday, but got exhausted unexpectedly by 6 am yesterday morning because of continuous usage and difficulty in restocking occasioned from scarcity of the product.

“Getting supply to restock was unfortunately not immediately possible. The diesel was later supplied and power restored. It’s a one-off occurrence. You will agree with me that it’s an unusual time. The process of getting supplies is currently disrupted.

“If it was not that power was constant in the hospital, Power outage for a period within a day would not have been an issue. The power outage in the hospital was almost like a force majuere.

“As I speak, the main electricity supply to the hospital has not even come up for one second over the last one week”, the statement explained.

The management, however, lamented, “It is really difficult powering on plant continuously non stop particularly in this period of petroleum product scarcity and increased cost of the product, even more so when the cost cannot be transmitted to patients,” it concluded.

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