By Umaru Fofana
It was a dire situation at Connaught Hospital all day Thursday 25 February after Freetown’s main public referral hospital went all day without a drop of water.
Such was how bad the situation was that the theatre did not carry out any surgery. In-patients stopped thinking about their health condition and became more concerned about the fact that the use of the lavatories was impossible.
One health worker told me “the place was unbearable”.
Another asked, albeit rhetorically: “How can anyone imagine that we can function here without a drop of water?”
Three patients Politico spoke to said they felt like leaving the hospital. “I am an elderly person, I am unwell, and I am being subjected to the non-use of the toilet even when I am pressed for it”, one said.
The hospital management would not give details as to what the problem was, besides saying only that Guma Valley Water Company was busy fixing the problem.
Dr Kizito Dao who heads the hospital confirms the lack of water at the entire hospital, but referred us to the Hospital Secretary, Mustapha Yokie.
Asked whether the hospital did not have tanks to store water in case there was problem at the utility agency, the Yokie said it had. He would however not explain why they had not forestalled the problem by even calling for water bowsers to supply the hospital.
“We contacted Guma Valley… they came this afternoon and they are working on it”, Yokie told Politico. He would not say what the problem was and whether they had exhausted the stored water in the tanks he said the hospital had.
Not long ago the main maternity hospital, PCMH, also went without a drop of water. It took the expression of outrage on social media to force the hospital management to send for water bowsers to rectify the challenge.
The new health minister, Dr Austin Demby clearly has his work cut out for him.
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