Last week, when a man took to social media to narrate how his wife died on the operating table at the General Hospital in Minna, the Niger State, many were shocked by the circumstances that led to her unfortunate passing.
According to his post, about 35 minutes into the operation, the power supply was interrupted, and the theatre’s backup generator had no fuel.
After they sourced for fuel, the generator failed to start and as efforts were being made to find a mechanic, the patient remained on the operating table.
A nurse reportedly assured the patient’s husband that the surgery was continuing under improvised lighting provided by lamps and torchlights.
But when the mechanic arrived, he discovered that additional parts were needed to repair the generator. Throughout the delay, the patient remained in the theatre.
Power was finally restored approximately an hour later with what was expected to be a 90-minute procedure eventually stretched from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
The incident wasn’t just about the sudden loss of life, but it revealed just how dangerously close anyone was to Nigeria’s healthcare infrastructure deficit making them another statistic.
The central issue which came to light with this story was the height of a systemic failure many would otherwise ignore- the impact of the recurring power outages in Nigerian hospitals on the lives of Nigerians.
In the case of the deceaseds wife identified as Ummi Makusidi, a stable power supply could have made the difference between recovery and death.
This long-standing and unresolved crisis otherwise makes simple procedures complex and can easily increase the risk of surgical procedures.
It is nearly impossible to carry out surgical procedures safely without electricity, yet Nigeria’s healthcare system continues to struggle with this basic need.
From monitoring vital signs to operating critical surgical equipment, a reliable power supply despite being indispensable is lacking in many public hospitals.
One particularly disturbing scenario occurred between November 2024 and February 2025, when Nigeria’s premier teaching hospital, the University College Hospital, Ibadan endured months of blackout after being disconnected from the national grid over accumulated electricity debts.
That period exposed the rot and chronic underfunding that plague Nigeria’s healthcare system. Essential services were halted. Families were forced to bring in personal power sources in order to ensure the comfort and survival of their loved ones.
On another angle, while these lapses exist, one wonders how well our health regulators are doing to ensure that tragedies like these are averted.
There are standards requiring hospitals to maintain functional backup power systems, especially for critical procedures.
But, as is often the case in Nigeria, the gap between law and enforcement remains dangerously wide.
National health regulations and hospital accreditation guidelines mandate alternative energy sources, such as solar power, to ensure uninterrupted services during emergencies.
But in Ummi’s case, despite the presence of a generator at the hospital, it failed during her surgery — an unacceptable breach of basic healthcare standards.
This is often the case in many public hospitals, where backup generators meant to serve as safety nets, are often overused, poorly maintained, and left to fail before any intervention is made.
As the crusade against such gross negligence continues, it is important to note that Ummi’s death is not just about a single failure at the General Hospital, Minna.
It depicts a broader picture of the collapse of trust in Nigeria’s public healthcare system.
When hospitals cannot guarantee something as basic as electricity, it undermines public confidence. It pushes more Nigerians to seek expensive, sometimes unsafe alternatives.
The Niger State government must act now to restore faith in its healthcare system.
Accountability is lacking in the healthcare system where such acts of gross negligence are handled with kid gloves.
No woman should die a preventable death due to a power outage.
Likewise, it is importantly for the government to ensure that the system itself doesn’t work against healthcare workers.
Oftentimes, healthcare professionals have to make do with what they have even if grossly inadequate at the time.
This tragedy should be the much needed wake-up call and a catalyst for urgent reforms.
It has also become critical to do an audit of hospital equipment and ensure that hospitals emergency readiness protocols are up to standards.
On their own part, hospital management must ensure that they dedicate funding for maintenance of such generators to improve their responsiveness during emergencies.
Citizens must equally continue to demand improvements in our overall healthcare systems.
It is high time that we begin to see these deaths as what they are; avoidable deaths due to the systems failure rather than acts of bad luck.
We must start calling these deaths what they truly are: avoidable losses caused by systemic failure — not acts of bad luck.
The phrase “May Nigeria not happen to you” has sadly become a common prayer. But it is absurd and unacceptable that our hospitals remain death traps instead of places of healing.
Until policymakers act with urgency, every blackout will continue to pose the risk of death to another precious life.
