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Drugs stolen from Health Centres for Private Resale.
WENIRUDA has yet again championed good governance in the West Nile region of Uganda. As part of our plan to wipe out corruption from Public health facilities, WENIRUDA spearheaded the national anticorruption week events in Arua district under the theme: “Transparency and Accountability in the management of medicines in hospitals and health centres”.
As part of the activities of the anticorruption week, WENIRUDA sent out a research team to survey corruption in some selected hospitals and community health centres in the district. WENIRUDA officials then led a public dialogue based on the results of the survey. Here we share some of the salient issues that emerged from the research. ‘Leakage’ of essential medicines from hospitals.
Patients and staff at both the main hospital in Arua and in smaller community health centres expressed a prevalent sentiment of poor medical inventory management. Most of them thought the shortage of certain essential medicines such the anti-malarial drug Coartem was due to the siphoning of drugs to private clinics by hospital officials.
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It is a commonly known fact that medicines out of stock at the hospitals are readily available expensively at private clinics with links to hospital staff. A case was sighted where one of the staff was caught smuggling a large sack of drugs out of the hospital. In this instance, the individual was arrested at the gate after the guards were tipped by one of the patients.
Blatant theft
The sobering blow to healthcare in West Nile is that the theft of medicines is blatant and almost casual. One patient even pointed out a small hospital gate through which he believes drugs are routinely smuggled out of the hospital. In his own words, ‘if only you could wait around longer, or if you came when new stocks of medicine were just brought in, you could easily sight them (staff) carrying medicines away in boxes, kavera’s (plastic bags)…’
The rampant corruption appears to be a manifestation of both low personal integrity and a faulty inventory management system at the health centres. For example, several responsible local government regulators did not know how the medicine distribution system in Arua operates. |
Most of the interviewed community members and the patients also expressed total ignorance of the system. In addition to the patients, many medical personnel also understood the extent of corruption at their health centres.
Officials at some smaller community health centres expressed suspicions that the district warehouses do not deliver to their centres the exact amounts of drugs they should receive. For example, the numbers and types of medicines delivered are always inconsistent with the order and consignment documents. Follow up processes are usually thwarted by the lack of transparency in the bureaucracy. While discussing WENIRUDA’s survey report at the public dialogue, the chair of social committee of Arua district local government, Honorable Atiku Benard challenged health practitioners in the district to adhere to their professional ethics. The director of health services in Arua district Patrick Anguzu weighed in, urging the WENIRUDA team to follow up on their findings to help eliminate corruption in the health sector. |
