-supplies disappears days after delivery
The Guyana Police Force is investigating suspected fraudulent activities at the Suddie Public Hospital. This development follows a recent visit by a Ministerial Task Force to the Region Two hospital.
According to information disseminated by the Public Health Ministry, when Task Force members visited the hospital on Monday the authorities there could not account for several items sent only last week Tuesday by the Materials Management Unit [MMU].
The missing items were not reported to the Regional Health Officer (RHO), the team notified the police.
During the Task Force’s one-day visit to the Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam) health institution, several other irregularities were unearthed.
In one instance, the pharmacist at the hospital could not have given account for several ampules of pethidine, codine and morphine. In another, the Dangerous Drugs Register wasn’t up-to-date. The last entry was made sometime in 2015.
The team also found instances where the stock of narcotic drugs either could not be accounted for and the pharmacist had extra drugs that were still not recorded as prescribed under the law.
A MMU staffer confirmed on Tuesday that 10 items on the list of drugs destined for the Suddie Hospital “either never arrived” or significantly less was received when compared to what was sent.
For example, all 100 boxes of the drugs Simvastatin disappeared before arriving at the hospital. Each box contained 100 of the drugs.
The official said, too, that “all 108 bottles of the Paracetamol suspension also vanished.” The MMU employee disclosed that 20 of the 1,000 Ampicillin 500Mg sent disappeared.
The MMU senior official said that all 20,000 disposable gloves sent for the hospital were not accounted for.
This discovery comes on the heels of other similar questionable discoveries at other public health facilities.
Just recently two individuals of the West Demerara Regional Hospital were taken into police custody. Based on reports that were filtered to this publication, the two persons were in police custody assisting with an investigation into the allegations of drug procurement and supply fraud at the Region Three hospital.
The Ministry of Public Health had confirmed this development in a statement which informed that the hospital’s pharmacist, Puran Bipath, and his wife, were taken in police custody.
The couple, according to information out of the Ministry, is employed at the hospital and were fingered in the criminal act after irregularities were discovered by a team from the Health Ministry.
Reports suggest that the team, acting on the instructions of Senior Minister of Public Health, Ms. Volda Lawrence, had been conducting a fact-finding mission which uncovered several discrepancies.