Officials from the State House Health Monitoring Unit carried out a crackdown on Health Facilities last Friday and recovered lots of stolen government drugs. They arrested a designer living in the city suburb of Bunga with stolen equipment, medicines and laptops. The Director of Health Services Dr. Jackson Ojera said the stolen drugs were worth 300 Uganda million shillings, the sum that could fully equip a new clinic. “I am reliably informed that he actually broke into a house or to a facility kind of. So he faces three charges for; burglary, theft of medicine and possession of certified medicine.” Said, Dr. Jackson Ojera. “In this case, we got information from a contact, telling us about the existence of some drugs being handled by unauthorized persons, so as usual we had to move in very fast and we impounded the drugs.” Said, Collins Karugaba, Head of Investigations, CID.
The authorities tracked the drugs to a Health facility called Bulamu Health Services funded by a Canadian Philanthropists. The center provides health services to refugees. The Health Monitoring Unit was established by the government eight years ago mainly for the purpose of strengthening the healthcare system. Just last year alone, they discovered that they lost 1.8 billion Ugandan shillings of medical care. Now the conflict reload countries are driving this demand for stolen medicine. “Now DRC and Southern Sudan have the most important borders for us, they are big borders, it is hard to detect and some of these things are packed in boxes in a way you wouldn’t expect.” Said, Phiona Abasa, Public Relations Health Monitoring Unit.
“There are so many needy people and so there is already market. So when it is from here going the other side sells highly and they keep telling these people to keep taking more.” Said, Head of Investigations, CID. The State House Monitoring Unit supervises more than 5,000 medical facilities across the country. Although the government made efforts to provide the country free drugs for low-income earners, it often gets stolen. Quality healthcare in Uganda remains a preserve of the rich.
