The students of the College of Health Sciences, Bayero University, Kano are presently taking lectures and other clinical studies at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) under suffocating conditions due to a lack of electricity supply for three weeks, The Guardian gathered.
Besides that, the residential hostels of the clinical students within the AKTH premises have been without power for the last three weeks.
In addition to the difficulty of learning and living in darkness, The Guardian learned that Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) students and their counterparts in the Allied Health Sciences and Dentistry departments have to fetch water daily for basic needs since their hostels were disconnected from the water supply in AKTH about three months ago.
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The Guardian’s findings at Yusuf Maitama Sule, Abdulhamid Isa Dutse, and Stella Adadevoh halls, as well as some of the lecture theatres at AKTH, indicated a total blackout and dry water channels.
A 500-level MBBS student told our correspondent that AKTH management disconnected the hostels from the power supply to the hospital three weeks ago over an unresolved issue with BUK.
The medical student, who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of victimisation, said, “It has not been easy for me or let me say for all the students of the faculties here because we are passing through the challenge together. We only have power supply for 1 hour 30 minutes daily in the hostel. No electricity in the lecture rooms and you can’t sleep well in the hostel. This has been on for three weeks if not more.”
On water supply, he said: “We don’t have water supply in the hostel in the last three months. Before now, water supply was constant in the hostel but presently, we trek distances to fetch water to bathe and do laundry. Sometimes many people would not get water to freshen up and they need to attend lectures. So, they don’t have a choice.”
It was a similar experience for another clinical student who also preferred to remain silent about his name for fear of victimisation. The 400-level student said, “As you can see, I’m just coming back from the lecture room but everywhere was locked because there is no electricity.
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“I don’t have a choice but to return to the hostel. Even though there is no power supply in the hostel too, I just have to return home. We just hope things get better because this has been on for months now. As for water supply, we mostly trek to the resident doctors’ residence and sometimes car washes or inside the hospital to fetch.”
Efforts to make inquiries from the management of AKTH and Bayero University did not yield positive results at the time of filing this report.
However, it was gathered through unofficial sources that the students are paying the price for differences between the management of the teaching hospital and the university over unresolved financial interests.
Although the two federal institutions are structurally designed to jointly train and manage the academic and clinical aspects of students in the faculties of Health Sciences, Dentistry, and Allied Health Sciences, the perceived conflict is jeopardising the quality of learning for the students already.
The post Kano medical students groan as darkness, water shortages plague ATKH appeared first on Guardian Nigeria News.
