President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has said his administration would no longer tolerate persistent power outages in hospitals.
He spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at the first National Stakeholders' Dialogue on Power in the Health Sector.
The dialogue, themed 'Powering Health Through Public-Private Synergy: Energizing Nigeria's Health Sector for the Future', was organized by the Ministry of Health & Social Welfare and the Ministry of Power.
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Tinubu, represented by Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, described reliable electricity as a cornerstone of modern healthcare delivery.
The President said, "Today, we face a pressing issue that affects every Nigerian: the persistent power supply crisis in our tertiary hospitals and public health institutions.
"In surgical theatres, maternity wards, intensive care units, laboratories, and emergency rooms across the country, power outages too often compromise safety, interrupt care, and cost lives. This crisis demands our immediate attention and concerted action.
"These outages cannot continue, and under our administration, they should not. Lives are at stake. We must act now."
He assured stakeholders that his administration was committed to transforming the health sector by adopting innovative and sustainable energy solutions.
"This initiative to advance energy solutions in our hospitals is not an isolated intervention. It is an integral part of the Renewed Hope Agenda to address energy poverty in Nigeria by decentralising and deploying tailor-made solutions and promoting private sector participation," he said.
He said his administration is leveraging the Energy Transition Plan and ongoing power sector reforms to expand off-grid solar and hybrid systems, incentivise private sector participation, and promote public-private partnerships.
President Tinubu also highlighted plans to mobilise investments from development partners and international financiers.
While urging health institutions and facility managers to adopt long-term strategies rather than temporary fixes, he said: "Let us design and implement efficient, maintainable, and community-owned systems."
He called on development partners to sustain their support for innovative interventions and assured private investors that Nigeria offered an enabling environment, clear frameworks for returns, and government backing for renewable and hybrid energy projects.
"The success of this initiative will not be measured by the speeches we deliver but by the uninterrupted light in our hospitals, the hum of functioning equipment, and the renewed confidence of every Nigerian who walks through the doors of a public health facility," he added.
Also speaking, the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Iziaq Adekunle Salako, said the country's health system is "inefficiently powered," warning that unreliable electricity supply is crippling service delivery in hospitals nationwide.
Salako said many health institutions are struggling with high energy costs, inadequate backup supply, and poor access to reliable electricity.
"Our health system is not only underpowered, it is inefficiently powered.
"A survey conducted by Sustainable Energy for All in 2021 shows that 40 per cent of functional primary health care facilities in Nigeria do not have access to electricity, while most of the remaining 60 per cent receive less than 10 hours of power daily," the minister said.
He revealed that Federal Tertiary Health Institutions require between three and eight megawatts of energy to function optimally but receive only 5.3 hours of daily electricity from the national grid.
"They spend between N20 million and N180 million monthly on power, with 20 to 50 per cent of their operating expenses going into fuel purchases," he said.
Salako added that the situation was no better in the private sector, where a recent survey showed hospitals spending between N5 million and N20 million monthly on electricity.
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"This scenario has resulted in sub-optimal service delivery, reduced access to care, compromised quality of treatment, and poor health outcomes," he said.
"Services have been disrupted, public health compromised, and many lives lost due to poor electricity supply. Energy supply has become a major disrupter of health services in our country. It has become an emergency that we must address."
While acknowledging government and partner efforts, including solar hybrid deployments by the Rural Electrification Agency and the EU-backed Nigeria Solar for Health Programme, he stressed that progress was still too slow and not at the scale required.
"We can no longer afford business as usual in the face of service interruptions, patient dissatisfaction, and mounting energy bills in our hospitals. The time has come to put all hands on deck to relieve our health system of the burden of prohibitive power costs and ensure reliable electricity supply," he said.
