A health facility without electricity can’t refrigerate vaccines or blood. Night-time deliveries of babies might only be possible by the light of a mobile phone guiding the surgeon, and some equipment don’t function in the operating room. Those are the realities facing thousands of health facilities globally that lack electricity — many of which are in remote areas.
An estimated 100,000 public health care facilities don’t have access to reliable electricity in sub-Saharan Africa – undermining their ability to provide patients with quality care.
These facilities are considered risky customers to energy companies, and not enough is put into the maintenance of renewable energy systems that are installed, curbing their sustainability, according to delegates at the Sustainable Energy for All Forum in Kigali last week.