General News of Thursday, 16 October 2014

Source: starrfmonline.com

Power supply cut not due to unpaid bills - Korle Bu

The Korle Bu Teaching hospital has denied media reports that power supply to the facility has been cut due to non-payment of electricity bills.

According to the hospital, the current electricity supply problem has been caused by a technical hitch.

In a statement, the hospital added that the development has also not affected delivery of emergency services contrary to reports.

Below is the full statement by the hospital

It has come to the attention of the Management of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital of misleading media reports that power supply to the Hospital has been curtailed due to the non-payment of electricity bills.

Management wishes to state that the current electricity supply problem is caused by a technical hitch detected on a switch at one of the substations that serves some parts of the Hospital.

Since Friday, October 10, engineers from ECG and the Hospital have been working tirelessly to replace the faulty switch. ECG has assigned a new switch from its stores in Tema to Korle Bu, and it will soon be installed to address the problem.

In view of this, the Hospital has had to rely on its generators to supply power to the departments.

The high load on the generators has created some instability in the electricity supply system in the Hospital, leading to the non-functioning of some vital equipment.

On account of this unstable power supply, we had to suspend some non-emergency cases. However, all the emergency cases are being attended to.

It must be stressed that the problem is not about non-payment of electricity bills.

We are hopeful that within the next couple of days the problem will be addressed to restore normal supply of power from the national grid to the entire Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.