Addis Ababa’s ailing state hospitals
Tesfaye Ejigu
A city,where the government has built no new hospital for the last 22 years, is struggling with its few outdated and under supplied state run hospitals
Around end of October 2013, the online version of Addis Standard published an opinion piece discussing an eight hour power outage and a dysfunctional power generator at Tikur Anbessa (Black Lion) Hospital, a state run hospital in Addis Ababa. Written by Fitsum Tilahun (MD), it revealed what might have happened during that fateful moment at the hospital. “You can expect a lot of bad things to happen when you go to any hospital in Ethiopia…but what you don’t expect is to see your new born baby die from hypothermia or see your patient who is in life support machine die because of power outage,” wrote Fitsum. Many of our readers said it was “unacceptable,” “outrageous,” and “irresponsible.” They were right.
