MNH environment induces corruption-forum
 
2007-11-27 15:10:22
By Austin Beyadi

Stakeholders in the health sector have said that it is hard to get corruption reports from the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) as the hospital environment forces patients and their relatives to corrupt nurses and doctors in order to get better and quicker services.

They made the remarks in Dar es Salaam yesterday during an open forum organised by MNH management in collaboration with the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB).

The stakeholders said people can not report the vice because in most cases it is the patients themselves or their relatives who offer nurses and doctors money as an inducement for better or quicker services.

The forum was organised to allow the public air their views on current reports that corruption was entrenched at MNH.

Speaking during the forum, MNH Managing Director Prof Leonard Lema said it was sad that some people had been blaming the institution for corruption while in actual fact the situation was not all that bad.

He said since the hospital management launched a campaign to allow people to report graft incidents at the hospital six months ago, the management had received only one complaint during the time.

Prof. Lema admitted that sometimes circumstances make people believe that there was corruption at the hospital, although in actual fact it was part of the hospital’s management procedure.

``If a person is about to be discharged in two or three days after their condition has improved and another person arrives in a serious condition and the one feeling better is removed from the bed and put on the floor then some people will associate that with corruption,`` he said.

``We can not have a seriously ill patient on the floor while another one who is feeling better is on the bed,`` he added.

He further said that most of the problems are raised because of congestion at the hospital and that the problem would soon be solved after completion of renovation of the hospital’s buildings.

The Deputy Director of PCCB Dar es Salaam Zone Pili Mwakasege said PCCB depended on the cooperation of the public for it to operate efficiently.

She said PCCB has received a lot of complaints from people that there are a lot of corrupt incidents going on at MNH.

She said PCCB would continue to hold open forums because they exposed new challenges that provided a good starting point for the bureau.

• SOURCE: Guardian