Tamale Teaching Hospital In Water Crisis as Tamale Residents Angered By Prolonged water Crisis

Water crisis has hit the Tamale Teaching hospital compelling the laboratory unit to turn away some patients. Chief executive officer of the hospital Dr. Ken Sagoe confirmed the situation and says the hospital is doing all it can to contain the situation.
He says the hospital has water tankers but there is no water at the source making it difficult for the authorities to use other alternatives.
He says until the water situation improves in the metropolis, the hospital authorities can only continue to try all possible means to get water to serve patients.
Meanwhile a nine month old pregnant woman who spoke to Zaa news expressed her frustration at the situation.
She was referred to the laboratory by a doctor but could not be attended to, because there was no water at the lab.
A laboratory technician who did not want to be named said the problem has persisted for a long time and said the patients could choose to go to private laboratories where there is health insurance facility for medical attention.
The effect of the water crisis at the hospital is just a microcosm of what is being endured by the people of the Tamale metropolis in almost a month now.
This is because Ghana water Company has not been able to deal with the crisis since it started, often blaming the Volta River authority (VRA) providers of electricity for the problem.
The water Company had argued that there was no sufficient power supply to start the water pumping machines.
 They say any time power is restored after an outage; it takes several hours before the water company can begin to pump water and adds that, that is even contingent on how much power is available.
The VRA has also blamed the problem on some of its equipment. While the providers of these two essential services continue to pass the back on one another, the people of Tamale continue to suffer to draw water.
Many of the dams like the Bilpela and Lamashegu dams have dried up, prompting fears that there could be an epidemic.
A meeting between the Northern Regional Minister, Moses Mabingba, the Tamale Mayor, Alhaji Haruna Abdulai and the two essential service providers could only produce a few thousands of gallons of water to some few areas of the metropolis.
Now the crisis has hit the epidemic level affecting the only teaching hospital in the northern sector and compelling laboratory technicians to turn away even pregnant women.
Residents are angry that the situation still persist after a long time and are calling on the authorities to do something about the problem.]]>