- Adelabu said that all the issues relating to the lingering power crisis had been settled.
Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, to the hospital, has decried the perennial power outage at the University College Hospital, UCH, Ibadan, calling it a national embarrassment.
UCH has been having power crisis since last year, a situation that got worse in the last three months as the hospital was plunged into total darkness forcing patients and their relatives to bring their own alternative source of power to the hospital.
The power supply to the hospital was cut of by IBEDC three times in 2024.
However, Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC, has now agreed to restore the power supply to the hospital within 48 hours.
The announcement was made on Monday during a visit of Adelabu.
This was part of the resolutions of the tripartite meeting between Adelabu, the Chief Medical Director of UCH, Professor Jesse Otegbayo, and the management team of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company, IBEDC, led its Managing Director, Francis Agoha.
While the meeting was ongoing, some medical students were protesting close to the venue of the meeting.
Adelabu, who spoke after the meeting, said that all the issues relating to the lingering power crisis had been settled.
He described the lingering power crisis as not only an embarrassment to the management of the hospital but the federal government.
“Power crisis in the UCH has gone to embarrassing level. It is quite embarrassing to have the hospital in total darkness for so long. I have intervened in the matter several times but the problem still lingers.
“Other Teaching Hospitals, including the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Lagos University Teaching Hospital, (LUTH), University of Calabar, Maidiguri and Abuja that had similar issue were able to surmount it through the Federal government intervention of Solar mini grid.
“Similar thing will be done at the University of Ibadan and the College of Medicine. The Federal government will install 50 mgw solar mini grid which will be completed within the first and second quarter of the year.
“Also, while this is going on, the IBEDC has agreed to restore electricity to some sections of the Hospital within 48 hours while N283m will be settled on an instalment basis.
“The management of the UCH has agreed on immediate settlement of the debt on instalment payment which is going to be between 8-12 months in addition to the current bill,” he stated
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