Jinja Regional Referral Hospital management has been blamed for laxity in stock-taking and ensuring security at the facility which led to the theft of oxygen cylinders.
According to officials from the State House health monitoring unit the administrators were negligent about good record keeping, which greatly provided leeway for a section of hospital staff to steal the cylinders unnoticed.
The officials from HMU led by the head of investigations, Collins Karugaba, also fault hospital administrators of failure to institute tight security measures, which would enable security guards to conduct thorough checks of all personnel and health workers accessing and exiting the hospital premises without fail, arguing that, such inconsistencies eased the theft of oxygen cylinders, undetected.
Karugaba says that they resolved to conduct fresh stock takings on Friday morning, after noticing inconsistencies in the hospital’s official records, where new findings from both undisclosed donors and ministry of health officials indicate that, the facility received 276 oxygen cylinders.
He reveals that, before their investigations, 56 oxygen cylinders were available, while 22 others have been recovered within the week, whereas 198 others are still missing.
However, Karugaba says that with the hospital administration in place, there is room for tightening administrative lapses and gaps, which will help to control the theft of hospital equipment and drugs.
He also stresses that the unit has investigated several cases of misconduct, theft of government drugs and theft of equipment in Jinja hospital within the past five years, however, criminal actors keep evolving and employing new tactics.
