SIR: Societies attach great importance to issues surrounding their health care system and how it functions. To ensure that the system functions at its best, adequate health care facilities must be put in place which will help to enhance the growth and productivity of the nation.
Part of the major problems that hamper proper service delivery in the health sector is lack of adequate electricity. Most rural areas do not have electricity in their health care centres and are compelled beyond grave circumstances to depend on fossil-powered generators. Consequently, not only do they spend so much money on fuelling and maintaining the generators, but you can imagine other grave adverse effects of the generator use, such as the noise pollution that disturbs the health facility environment that normally should require pin-drop tranquillity to enable the patients have a peaceful and healthy recuperation from the medical care they are receiving.
Hospitals depend largely on electricity to run their activities. Electricity powers almost all of equipment needed in a hospital, including life support machines, incubators for premature babies, ventilation machines helping people breathe, gas supplies for putting people to sleep during operations, blood pressure monitors. Also there are private medical laboratories that must depend on any source of energy to operate their medical equipment to carry out their laboratory test of all kinds. Most of them that are not attached to the public and/or private hospitals run their laboratory facilities as private businesses and fall within the SMEs, and having no adequate access to energy will eat deep into their progress to make money from their business and delays service delivery that require urgent attention to save life.
It is time these rural health facilities look in the direction of alternative energy that comes from the renewable sources. This could come in form of Solar Home Systems (SHS) and Micro Grids.Most of health facilities, especially the rural ones are not well aware of the existence of renewable energy, let alone how it benefits them positively and enhances their service delivery. Some of the major units in the hospitals that are affected by electricity include lighting for proper and constant illumination. Water heating which can use an excessive amount of energy in a hospital and therefore require steady access to power. There are simple things, like keeping fridges and freezers running to keep medicines working, because medicines can break down at the wrong temperature. Machines that help doctors decide what is wrong; like measuring the electrical activity of the heart (an ECG). They are also used to power machines like respirators, which breathe for people when they cannot do it for themselves, (for example, during some operations or after severe head injuries). Therefore, it is of paramount importance to keep the availability of energy constant in a hospital environment.
Since there is this great demand for energy due to lack of electricity, renewable energy should be introduced for greater efficiency in health facilities in the rural areas. Renewable energy is very reliable and can save the day on their own; they will be a central part of any long term energy strategy for both the urban and rural health care services. The quest for energy independence, economic growth, and environmental sustainability increasingly suggests the importance of renewableenergy sources. Renewable energy is gained by tapping into “existing flows of energy” and “natural processes” in ways that generate more usable energy than is expended in the production process; there is ample need to keep the energy supply of it steady.
Government should prioritise steady and clean energy by allocating adequate funding in the primary health care sector to cover for installation of solar energy in rural health facilities.
- Akunna Sophia Ofili, Climate Transformation and Energy Remediation Society, Abuja.
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