BUKEDEA .
Police in Bukedea District are holding four health workers attached to Malera Health Centre III and Kabarwa Health Centre III who are implicated in theft of medical supplies .
The quartet is currently detained at Bukedea Central Police Station .
The arrests followed an audit conducted by the State House Health Monitoring Unit (HMU), which unearthed inconsistencies in medical supply records.
According to Dr Jerome Mpaata Owagage, Assistant Director at HMU, the audit revealed that 12 boxes of testing kits and other laboratory materials were missing from Malera Health Centre III.
When questioned, health workers claimed the facility’s limited storage space forced them to store supplies outside the premises. However, when the HMU team returned to inspect the returned supplies, they found that the batch numbers belonged to stock meant for Kabarwa Health Centre III, not Malera Health Centre III.
“The health workers eventually admitted they had taken the items from Kabarwa Health facility to give false accountability,” Dr Mpaata explained.
The HMU team immediately conducted an audit at Kabarwa Health Centre III and found that its store had been emptied, with critical supplies, including Determine test kits, transferred to Malera Health Centre III.
As a result, two staff members from Malera Health Centre III will face charges of abuse of office and embezzlement under the Anti-Corruption Act, while the staff from Kabarwa Health Centre III will be charged with conspiracy to commit a crime.
Bukedea Resident District Commissioner Wilberforce Tukei condemned the misconduct of health workers saying stealing drugs will not be tolerated .
“Our President has talked about this vice several times .Those who have been netted will face the full force of the law. “
According to the Inspectorate of Government (IGG) ‘s 2021 report, theft or embezzlement of medicines and equipment is the most common form of corruption in Uganda’s healthcare sector, leading to the diversion of essential drugs from public health facilities to private clinics or unauthorised markets, depriving patients of necessary treatments.