A photo making the rounds on social media has reignited anger over the state of Nigeria’s public hospitals. The image shows a team of surgeons hunched over a patient on an operating table, their only source of light being the white glow of smartphone torches held up by colleagues around them. The operating theatre is otherwise completely dark.
The image aligns with a documented incident on March 15, 2026, at Suleja General Hospital in Niger State, where nursing staff were forced to use their personal phone lights to continue attending to patients after a total blackout hit the facility. Power was not restored for several hours, leaving medical personnel to improvise in conditions no hospital should ever operate under.
It is not an isolated case. Public hospitals across the country have repeatedly reported prolonged outages that disrupt surgeries, shut down equipment, and put patients at direct risk. Generators, where they exist, are often broken down or starved of diesel. The result is a healthcare system that runs on luck and the charged batteries of its own staff.
Part of the problem sits in unpaid electricity bills. University College Hospital in Ibadan, one of the country’s foremost teaching hospitals, reportedly owes around four hundred million naira in outstanding utility debts. When institutions of that calibre struggle to keep the lights on, smaller general hospitals across the states have virtually no chance….See More
Leave a Reply