Fire Guts Ebonyi Minsitry Of Health Building,Destroys Medical Facilities Worth Millions of Naira
By Alex Odeh, Pan Afric Reporters
An outbreak of fire in the early hours of Thursday has destroyed Medical facilities worth hundreds of millions of naira in the Ebonyi State Ministry of Health.
It was gathered the solar system that was the source of power to the ministry developed fault which necessitated the invitation of officials of the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) to restore power to the ministry.
It was also learned that the alternative solar power supply was faulty and the engineers responsible for the repair were not on hand to fix it before the unfortunate incident occurred.
However, briefing journalists Block 5 Centenary City Abakaliki, the Hon. Commissioner for Health, Dr Moses Ekuma, who lamented the monumental loss, enumerated things that were affected by the inferno.
He disclosed that the cold store housing immunization and solar units which contained vaccines, vaccine carriers, cold chain boxes, laptops, documents, 5 refrigerators, 2 solar refrigerators, 45 solar batteries were destroyed by the fire.
Others are: inverters including hospitals beds and foams received from National Primary Health Care Development Authority (NPHCDA), Abuja for distribution to MAMII LGAs next week among others were all burnt by fire.
Ekuma further said said that a committee has been constituted to investigate the cause of the fire outbreak in order to avert further occurrence.
On his part, the Officer In Charge of Operations in Ebonyi State Fire Service, Mr. Frank Oka Ota said that he got a distress call at about 5:18 am and mobilized his men to the place immediately emphasizing that they tried to cut it off so that it doesn’t escalate to other parts of the building as it had already gained ground before they came.
