Students Want DSUTH Connected To National Grid

Medical students of the Delta State University have called for the linking of the University Teaching Hospital (DSUTH), Oghara, to the national grid to protect installed facilities.

They said on Saturday in Oghara, Ethiope East Local Government Area, Delta State that the hospital had sophisticated equipment, and should not be allowed to depend only on independent power generation for its operations.

The students described the hospital, which was inaugurated on Saturday by President Goodluck Jonathan, as “world class”, and commended the state government for bringing Nigerian medical experts in the Diaspora to work in it.

“The hospital is simply magnificent and sophisticated in terms of size, equipment and personnel”, Mr Oghenerumu Ijderhe, one of the students, said.

He said that there was no way the hospital could survive by depending only on its own-generated power, adding that it needed additional power from the national grid to save its equipment.

Another student, Miss Vera Abiri, said the claim by the state government that the hospital was the best in sub-Saharan Africa could be true because of “the high quality facilities installed”.

She said that with such a hospital in the country, “nobody needs to go outside Nigeria for solution to any medical problem”.

“Besides, with this type of teaching hospital around, there may be no need for medical personnel, including doctors, to go outside the country for jobs.

“The hospital, by any reckoning, can serve every medical need in the country and beyond,” Abiri added.

She, however, expressed fear about the ability of the hospital authorities and government to maintain the facilities, and said that “it is only their commitment to the maintenance culture that can ensure the survival of the equipment and retention of the experts”.