Three people have so far been arrested, in a joint operation against alleged extortions from patients at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital, conducted by the Statehouse Health Monitoring Unit (SHHMU) together with authorities in Mbale.
“So far 3 members of the staff have been arrested and 1 hawker who snatched a phone from a patient,” Ahamada Washaki, the Mbale Resident City Commissioner said in a statement,
Following media reports on extortion in this hospital, a special team from the SHHMU led by Dr. Stephen Atari Ayella the Deputy Director has teamed up with the Mbale Leadership to follow up on the case.
Ahamada Washaki the Mbale RCC said in a press statement that they have already started the operations aimed at following up on cases of extortion, luring patients out of the Regional Referral Hospital to clinics outside, where they are charged expensively.
The team, he said, is also following up on reports where health workers are deliberately failing machines within the hospital to justify referring patients outside where health workers are given a commission.”Measures have been put in place to check on the extortion sneaking patients out of the Hospital and crowding the hospital and general administration.
“Parking private vehicles in the hospital have been stopped, we stopped boda bodas staging at the hospital gate who in turn have been used to ferry patients out of the hospital to private clinics,” he said
“The hospital management has been tasked to step up supervision, all cases we had earlier on reported to police have been taken over by the HMU investigation unit,” he added
The team l, according to Washaki, also resolved to regulate the time for visitors to the hospital to reduce crowds.
“The team is still around till next week.
As a monitoring team of the City we have benefited a lot from working with the team,” he said
