Nurses at the Kaneshie Polyclinic in Accra are forced to use torch lights to deliver pregnant women of their babies due to the breakdown of its generator.

The health officials and patients rely on lights from phones and torches to administer health care anytime the area is hit by power cuts.

Ghana has been experiencing unprecedented power cuts for the past three years. It has led to the rationing of power detailed on a load-shedding timetable.

But the timetable has been faulted as unreliable whenever the power deficit of about 500 megawatts hits the power supply chain.

Joy News’ Kwetey Nartey was at the hospital where a woman in labour was assisted by torch-light-wielding nurses to deliver at about 10:45pm Sunday.

The woman in labour was rushed in while he was speaking to one of about a dozen patients and relatives fanning themselves in the unbearable heat in the wards.

Two nurses – holding a pen-size torch lights direct the light towards the woman in labour.

The midwife runs a razor to create a wider opening as the baby’s head pops out.

Soaked in sweat, the young mother is unable to hold back the pains as the midwife finally cuts the placenta.

The stitching of an opening was also done in darkness.

“With what I saw today, I don’t see myself delivering here”, a shocked eyewitness and expectant mother, Francisca Entchill, told Kwetey Nartey.

She agonized at the thought that a “fresh baby who has been born is going to sleep in this darkness”.

The only generator serving the Kaneshie Polyclinic does not work. It’s old and rusty.

Anytime there is a power cut, nurses turn away pregnant women whose conditions do not require critical care.

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