By Nyasha Chuma
HARARE — The Ministry of Health and Child Care has deployed an electronic tracking system to monitor medicines from the National Pharmaceutical Company (NatPharm) directly to public hospital wards, moving decisively to plug leakages and crush syndicate driven corruption among rogue health officials.
The direct government intervention comes amid mounting outrage over corrupt health workers who steal state-funded medical supplies from public facilities and divert them to private pharmacies for resale. This illicit trade leaves vulnerable patients at public hospitals without essential care while forcing the government to incur heavy financial losses to continuously restock stolen supplies.
Confirming the crackdown, Deputy Minister of Health and Child Care Sleiman Kwidini said medicine leakages are costing the state significant sums of money and directly robbing citizens of life-saving care. He emphasized that the newly introduced digital monitoring apparatus will maintain a strict chain of custody, trace inventory in real-time and hold rogue officials accountable at every stage of distribution.
