…energy cost gulps 50% hospitals’ operating cost- minister
President Bola Tinubu has demanded an immediate and concerted action to tackle what he termed a persistent power supply crisis crippling Nigeria’s tertiary hospitals and public health institutions, warning that the situation continues to endanger the lives of citizens and undermine care delivery.
Tibubu made this call at a two-day National Stakeholders’ Dialogue on Power in the Health Sector organised by the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in collaboration with the Ministry of Power in Abuja on Monday, while describing the crisis as a matter of national urgency that “must not continue “.
“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”, Tinubu, who was represented by George Akumez, secretary to the government of the Federation, declared.
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“These outages cannot continue, and under our administration, they should not. Lives are at stake. We must act now”, Tinuby stressed.
He charged ministers of Health and power, and other stakeholders at the dialogue to produce actionable outcomes including the review and alignment of national and subnational policies on energy access in the health sector, the institutionalisation of energy audits and planning within our hospital systems, mobilisation of social investment and diverse financing streams, including green bonds and concessional lending for energy supply to the health sector and establishing results-driven monitoring and accountability framework for implementation among others.
According to Tinubu, the sub-optimal, inefficient and often uneconomical electricity supply drives up the cost of services, disrupts care, compromises quality and increases patient dissatisfaction. He affirmed that his administration is fully committed to addressing
Tinubu said the National Dialogue must not be seen as a mere discussion forum, but should be a launching pad for collaborative action, strategic alignment, and shared responsibility in powering the nation’s health institutions.
He urged the private sector and investors to invest in health, energy, and infrastructure, while assuring an enabling environment.
“This National Dialogue must not be a mere talkshop. The success of this initiative will not be measured by the speeches we deliver but by the uninterrupted light in our hospitals”, he said.
Tinubu pledged to give resolutions the highest political backing necessary to translate ambition into execution.
In his remarks, Iziak Salako, minister of state for health and social welfare, recounted his visits over the past year to tertiary health institutions across Nigeria, where he found that electricity deficits and soaring energy bills were among the greatest obstacles to service delivery.
“These visits gave me the opportunity to be directly exposed to the challenges faced by our health institutions, a major one being the deficits in electricity provision and the huge energy costs they have to bear every month”, he said
He added that the system is “not only underpowered but also inefficiently powered,” citing a 2021 Sustainable Energy for All survey that showed that 40% of functional primary health centres had no electricity access, while most of the remaining 60% received less than 10 hours of supply daily.
The minister also highlighted a rapid assessment in 2025, which revealed that Federal Tertiary Health Institutions (FTHIs) require between 3MW and 8MW to function optimally, but receive an average of just 5.3 hours of grid electricity daily and rely on backup capacity of 0.8–3.3MW, 80% of which is diesel-generated.
The result, according to him, is prohibitive costs, with institutions spending between ₦20 million and ₦180 million per month on power, and energy consuming between 20 and 50% of operating expenses.
Energy supply has become a major disruptor of health services in our country. It has become an emergency that we must address if all the healthcare reforms and investments being made will achieve the desired result,” Salako warned.
He assured that the dialogue will produce a compact for the sustainable electrification of healthcare facilities across the country.
Muhammad Pate, coordinating minister of Health and Social Welfare, added that government revenues alone would be insufficient to finance the expansion of power for both public and private health institutions.
“Yes, public financing will be deployed. Yes, development financing will be deployed. But we also need to mobilise private capital. Public-private partnerships will be essential,” he urged.
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