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Regional News of Friday, 20 February 2015

Source: starrfmonline.com

Private hospitals sack workers over worsening dumsor

Some private hospitals in the Greater Accra region are laying off workers as the power crisis worsens, Starr News can confirm.

The hospitals are sending home the workers because of skyrocketing operational costs.

Information gathered by Starr News revealed that the health facilities are now using a chunk of their revenue to power medical equipments and treat patients because of the long hours of power outages.

Majority of the workers being sent home are health assistants.

Emmanuel Nartey, an administrator of the Bengali Hospital, which is one of the hardest hit in the Tema Metropolis told Starr News the power outages is seriously having a negative impact on their delivery.

“It’s problematic, and it is really affecting our delivery and besides most of our clients are insurance based and for the eight seven six months, no payments have been made so we have to use internal funds which we use to pay staff to buy fuel and other things”.

He added that authorities of the hospital would no choice than to lay off more workers if the situation does not improve.

In a related development, patients at the Ridge Hospital in Accra may soon pay for electricity.

The hospital management is considering charging the patients for power because government is dragging its feet in settling bills.

The Ridge hospital owes the Electricity Company over three Hundred Thousand Cedis.