If any place 'deserves' to be out of water for days, it should certainly not be our hospitals. Gradually Ghanaians are accepting the harsh situation where at a particular time of the year there is either no water or electricity supply.
So it was some few months ago when the public and businesses had to endure almost a year without constant supply of electricity. Now it is water shortage and many parts of the country, especially the urban areas are the worse hit.
The situation is so acute in the Accra metropolis that even hospitals have to be running without water supply. This situation has compelled the administrators of the hospitals to embark on emergency measures to curtail the situation.
According to officials from the Ridge Hospital who spoke with the media, the hospital spends between GH¢ 240 and GH¢ 320 to purchase water from private water tanker suppliers. Korle-Bu and other hospitals in the city have similar stories to tell.
Meanwhile, patients continue to troop into the hospitals for attention to their various ailments and as they cannot be turned away they have to be attended to, regardless of the unsanitary conditions that the water shortage has created.
So should the hospitals be closed until there is regular supply of water in order not to endanger the lives of patients and hospital staff?
As the obvious answer is No, we will like to appeal to officials in charge of water supply to take the matter up quickly. So far, the explanation being offered by officials of Aqua Vitens Rand Limited/Ghana Water Company have to be take with a pinch of salt, as they hardly vary whenever they fail to deliver.
Drought, electricity cuts, vandalisation of water system infrastructure, lack of logistics has always been the explanation from these officials and nothing seems to be done about it. Maybe the company is trying to tell us that these problems are beyond them.
As a result of infrequent flow of water, living in some parts of the Accra metropolis has become a nightmare as residents have to spend several hours and precious resources looking for water whose purity is in question in the first place.
According to the World Health Organisation, about 75 % of all diseases in developing countries arise from polluted drinking water. Research by UNICEF has shown that the consumption of unsafe water contributes to about 2.2 million deaths annually world wide.
The UN World Development Report further shows that the amount of disease and lost man hours due to unclean water is vastly greater than the cost of improving water systems. The report in fact, claims every dollar spent on improving water delivery and sanitation would bring $34 of benefit.
In Ghana, formal statistics cite access to treated water as available to 62 to 70 percent in urban areas and 35 to 40 percent in rural areas.
Therefore the country has a choice here: to reap all the benefits of having good water supply system or we continue to lose precious lives and other resources to diseases caused by non availability of water. Whatever the choice, consumers are still being asked to pay at the moment, and therefore deserve value for money.
