Masaka Regional Referral hospital is stuck with solar panels that were installed last year to provide power to the hospital during outages. The solar panels were installed by technicians from the Ministry of Energy in December last year on the orders of Dr. Asuman Lukwago, the permanent secretary Ministry of Health.
However, five months after installation, the solar panels have failed to work leaving the hospital in darkness during power outages. In some wards, such as the eye unit, nurses use battery torches to attend to patients during power blackouts.
Dr. Florence Tugumisirize, the hospital director says that the solar panels broke down one month after installation. She explains that when the panels stopped working they attempted to get in touch with the technicians who installed them but the telephone numbers they left behind are always switched off.
//Cue in: “They identified themselves………..
Cue out:….we needs power.”//
Currently, Masaka regional referral hospital relies on generators during power blackouts. Swaibu Sulaiti Sulambaaya, a health rights activist, says the use of generators affects patients suffering from hypertension. Sulambaaya, also a diabetic patient, wants government to investigate why the energy ministry installed fake panels.
Dr. Lukwago says that he is not aware what could have gone wrong, but promised to follow up the matter. It is not yet clear how much was used to install the solar system, as URN could not get any official from the ministry to comment on the matter.
