In ideal circumstances, patients visit healthcare service facilities to seek normal-health restoration and prolonged life. All the time, healthcare service providers try their best to save a life but sometimes—due to conditions such as terminal illness, for example—death becomes unavoidable. But, as PEMPHERO MALIMBA writes, there are times when death becomes inevitable not because healthcare service providers did not have requisite expertise but, rather, due to outside forces such as prolonged blackouts.
At least five people have died between February and November this year at Sharpvale Health Centre in Ntcheu District due to, according to authorities at the facility, lack of electricity.
The facility’s deputy in charge Joseph Kachingwe said the deaths occurred when the healthcare service provider failed to operate an oxygen concentrator due to lack of electric power.
According to Kachingwe, this is because the facility has, for 10 months, been operating without electricity as the transformer which powers the facility stopped functioning in February this year.
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That hitch has proven to be a death sentence to some patients.
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“A health facility needs electric power to run some equipment for [the provision of] various services but, currently, we are failing to run equipment such as the oxygen concentrator since we do not have electricity.
“So, on average, five people who needed the support of an oxygen concentrator have died during this period [February to November this year],” he said.
He said they reported the transformer issue to Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) and are waiting for the corporation’s action on the issue.
Dedza Catholic Diocese Pastoral Secretary Father Joseph Biliati— whose diocese owns the health centre— said they are doing their best to support the facility.
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“We are currently looking for people who can support us to have solar-powered electricity, taking into consideration that we have a maternity wing that needs uninterrupted power.
“More than ever, we need solar-powered electricity now while we are waiting for Escom to do its job,” Biliati explained.
Meanwhile, Escom Public Relations Manager Kitty Chingota has said they are aware of the situation.
She was quick to disclose that they do not have the right size of transformer for the area.
“We are aware of the problem but, presently, we do not have the right size of transformer for that location but we are in the process of sourcing transformers and, so, once we receive the right size, we will certainly be there to replace it,” Chingota said.
Sharpvale Health Centre was opened in 1975 and serves over 25,000 people from TA Ganya in the Central Region district
