Governor Alfred Mutua on Thursday, February 7 conducted a surprise raid on some hospitals in the country allegedly involved in an unscrupulous drug-siphoning spree. Mutua was accompanied by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations as they raided medical dens, recovering a number of drugs in the process.
Sources have learnt that there is a cartel operating in the country which entails doctors from Machakos level five hospital supplying meds from the main hospital to minor medical centres in the county. Once that is done, patients who go to the main hospital instead get referrals to the other medical dens which are basically operated by quacks.
The Machakos boss has since issued a statement on the same, as he revealed some patients have been forced to go to extreme lengths to be able to afford services from the ‘private facilities’ since the main hospital was short of resources.
“We were able to find unqualified people (quarks) treating people who had been referred to the clinics by some of my health workers. I was shocked to see medicines and equipment clearly labeled as government property in private clinics. Some of the operators even locked in patients and ran away on seeing us because they know the kid of crooked activities they have been undertaking.
I was heartbroken to find innocent patients who had been forced to sell goats to go to a private pharmacy instead of receiving free and total healthcare at our hospitals,” Mutua said in the statement shared on his social media.
As a result of the impending rot in the Machakos medical service delivery, the governor banned all referrals to other hospitals which has largely benefited the private clinics. The DCI have since commenced on investigations to establish and arrest the key members of the cartels.