By Usman Babaji
THE Bauchi government has set up a committee to investigate the report that health workers divert drugs, and equipment for personal gains in the state.
This is coming barely three months after an undercover investigation by WikkiTimes.
The Chairman of Bauchi state Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Rilwan Mohammed, disclosed this when Alheri Community Development and Support Initiative, a Bauchi/Gombe-based civil society organisation, paid an advocacy visit to the agency.
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The agency’s boss maintained that the state government will implement the recommendations outlined in the committee’s report to ensure a transparent service delivery across the healthcare centres in the state. He assured that the agency will inform the civil society groups of whatever decision the government takes after the submission of the committee’s report.
The investigation chronicled how the staff connived with their collaborating syndicate, who were mostly drug vendors, to cheat the system. Their corrupt conduct left those in need in excruciating pain and forced them to dive deeply into their pockets to afford treatment while many who could not afford it perished in the process.
About a month later, WikkiTimes Publisher Haruna Mohammed Salisu, lamented the government’s laxity in prosecuting individuals and entities exposed by the medium.
In a similar investigation, the media platform also uncovered how hospital laboratories in the neighbouring state of Gombe issue fake genotype certificates for a token, sometimes even free.
The Publisher in an interactive programme with Albarka Radio in Bauchi lamented that despite the time and resources invested to uncover the wrongdoings, the governments seemed not to make a drastic effort to bring the perpetrators into books to account for their wrongdoings.