September 15, 2021
BY MOHAMED M. SESAY
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has concluded the systems review report regarding the complaints made by German Doctors about the management of the Serabu community hospital.
The report by the ACC has therefore recommended for the hospital management to install CCTV Cameras at strategic entering points in the hospital precincts to prevent the alarming theft of medical drugs.
The ACC’s intervention by way of conducting the systems review exercise was prompted by a letter addressed by the ‘German Doctors Hilfe, Die Bleibt’ to the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Bo, Most Rev. Charles A. M Campbell,.
According to a press statement from the commission, the letter made a series of corruption allegations against the Management of the Hospital which includes: recurring structural problems at the Hospital, non-settlement of account dating back to April, 2021, not acting on independent audit issues resulting to abysmal theft of medicines, violation of procurement rules, doctors and Community Health Officers (CHOs) working for weeks without gloves and medicine, even though funding was provided for by the German Doctors.
The commission also proffered Seventy-three (73) recommendations urging the Hospital Management to implement with utmost urgency in a bid to address the structural problems at the Serabu Hospital.
Some of the key recommendations are as follows: monthly stock taking be conducted on the Hospital’s main medical stores and pharmacy; Close Circuit Televisions (CCTV) must be installed in strategic locations such as the gate, pharmacy, corridors of wards and stores; The Hospital’s Management must increase the presence of security guards as well as capacitating them on security issues.
The report further recommends that a trained and qualified pharmacist and drugs storekeeper must be immediately recruited; a service charter must be developed and placed in a strategic location, and regularly updated when there are changes in prices and services; an internal auditor must be recruited and strengthened to ensure the effective monitoring and reporting of compliance to internal administrative control; and that a monitoring and evaluation officer must be recruited to ensure the continued tracking and assessment of achievements of a set of project objectives and deliverables as well as identifying deviation from project criterion.
The commission has also demanded for the Board of the hospital to be properly constituted and must regularly meet at established periods and times, to discuss and take decisions on the day-to-day running of the hospital with the view that the Germans will be provided updates, minutes shared with them of Board meetings; annual, quarterly and monthly financial and narrative reports should be submitted to the Board for scrutiny to provide them with the opportunity to address any problem on time; major procurements and other major decisions should be deliberated and approved by the Board in a Board meeting before execution among others.
Prominent amongst the commission’s findings that hinges on the mismanagement at the Serabu Hospital include; violation of procurement rules, non-availability of gloves for use in hospital, no trained and qualified pharmacist and drugs storekeeper, no internal auditor and monitoring and evaluation officer, the existence of a dormant hospital board, nonexistence of financial policy and procedure manual, no automated recording of the dispensation of the drugs in the pharmacy, no fixed asset register and fixed asset management, and non-issuance of receipt for the various services paid for by patients.
“The Commission shall monitor the implementation of the recommendations within three months of the date of the presentation of the report. The Catholic church, the hospital and its partners have written to the ACC appreciating the Commission for its timely intervention and remedial actions”, the press statement concludes.