The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the University College Hospital (UCH), Prof. Jesse Otegbayo, on Sunday, lamented high overhead cost of running hospitals in Nigeria, calling on power distribution companies to reduce tariff or the government be paying power bills for essential services.
It would be recalled that the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC), a couple of days ago, disconnected the power supply to the premier teaching hospital over a debt running to N500 million.
The issue was resolved over the weekend and the power company restored power to the tertiary health facility.
Speaking on challenges in running the hospital, Profesdor Otegbayo said the running cost is far ahead of the amount the facility received from the Federal Government monthly.
The CMD said: “Today, there is no federal teaching hospital that is not owing their respective power company. IBEDC has been charging us industrial tariff, in spite of our appeals that we render humanitarian-cum-social services.You will notice that Distribution Companies increase their tariff as they will, and frequently too.
“As a hospital, we cannot do that. If we are to charge the appropriate fee for services, an average person will not be able to access our services.
“There is no month that we don’t pay about N45 million to IBEDC. They give us a bill that ranges from N45 million to N71 million monthly, whereas we receive about N14 million from the government as our overhead monthly.
“We supplement the payment for electricity from our internally generated revenue (IGR). Also, a substantial part of our indebtedness is for the University of Ibadan’s College of Medicine which is situated within the University College Hospital, Ibadan.
“Apart from power from the IBEDC payment, we spend about N20 million on diesel monthly aside from the cost of buying and maintaining our generators.
“I have escalated our challenges to the Ministers of Power and Health”.