Ministry of Health spokesperson, Reuben Kamoto Mbewe, says most of the equipment that was stolen from Lusaka’s Cancer Diseases hospital in the early hours of the morning on October 4th has been recovered.
Speaking in an interview to ZANIS, Dr Mbewe disclosed that five monitors, three computer controlling towers and two keyboards that were used in the diagnosis of cancer ailments in patients have been retrieved.
And Dr Mbewe has asked cancer patients who are still undergoing treatment not to lose hope as everything will get back to normal because management at the health institution is doing all it can to ensure operations resume.
He, however, lamented that three computer keyboards and three computer mice are still missing.
The Ministry of Health spokesperson added that engineers and relevant experts have since been engaged and are already working to repair all the vandalized cables as well as replacing the stolen equipment.
Dr Mbewe said there is some form of relief at the Cancer Diseases hospital as indications are that the equipment will work and advised all cancer patients to report for their continued treatment on Monday, next week.
He has urged cancer patients not to fall prey to misleading information because there is a new twist of event showing that the equipment will effectively perform.
Dr Mbewe explained that the cables which connect to the CT scan were excessively damaged and in the process the dongle which has the licence for the software is still missing adding that it may take quite some time to restore the CT scan services.
He further said in the mean time the Cancer Diseases hospital will use the CT scan which is available at the Levy Mwanawasa General Hospital.
And Police have arrested one person in connection with the theft which happened at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) cancer disease hospital bringing the number of apprehended suspects to four.
Police Public Relations Officer Elizabeth Kanjela has disclosed that Police have also recovered some items among them three computer processing units, five monitors and two key boards labelled GRZ-CDH belonging to the cancer hospital.
Ms. Kanjele has told ZANIS in a statement in Lusaka today, that other items recovered are a safe belonging to Zambia Institute for Diplomacy Studies, 16 unused cheque books and various breaking tools.
She identified the suspect as Maxwell Mwale aged 25 of Lilanda compound who is currently detained in custody and investigations in the matter have continued.
ZANIS
Wow ! Now this has made my day.I was worried sick when i read about the theft.Now i can start my weekends entertainment.Yasoveka.
fcuking assssholes stealing from a hospital. Shame on you one day you may need that treatment.
What is the appropriate punishment for such people. Execution only. Hard labour and whipping will not deter them. Only death.
WELL DONE THE POLICE IN LUSAKA. WE HAVE A PROBLEM IN KITWE WHERE PEOPLE KEEP ON LOSING THEIR LUGGAGE IN THE TOWN CENTRE OF KITWE MY FRIEND LOST A LAPTOP WHICH WAS CONTAINED A GREAT DEAL OF HIS LIFE BUT THE POLICE CANNOT EVEN GO TO THE SCENE TO SEE HOW THESE BOYS STEAL FROM INNOCENT PEOPLE. THESE BOYS CAN EVEN BE SEEN BY ANYONE WHO PARKS CAR IN THESE PLACE SALVATION ARMY, SHOPRITE, POST OFFICE, DIVINE FOOD AND BELVIEW. THE POLICE ARE AWARE BUT NO ARREST DONE WE ARE TIRED OF THESE BOYS. PLEASE PLEASE HELP HERE IN KITWE ALSO.
POLICE SHOULD ENSURE THE CASE IS THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATED AND THOSE BEHIND THE THEFT BE BROUGHT TO BOOK. WHOEVER STOLE THESE COMPUTERS KNEW THE IMPLICATIONS ON THE HEALTH OF OUR PEOPLE. THIS IS NOT AN ORDINARY THEFT.
They open any vehicle with their wires and lock the car without the owner noticing. Yes I agree with Chewe things are not well in Kitwe. The security is compromised. I wonder what the police are doing. I wish all the police officer from the Traffic must be deployed to curb this vise all the Country will be ungovernable. How can someone steal from the same area open cars and police have records for that but cannot act. SHAME ON POLICE SERVICE.
Those fools should be sent to a maximum security prison for LIFE! How low can *****s go? Stealing equipment used for treating people!
Good job ba police !! This is a commendable job. The only charge that befits those thieves is attempted murder.
On the bright side, WELL DONE ZAMBIA POLICE!!!! GREAT JOB!!!!!
SOMETIMES I BLAME THE PRISON WARDER AM TOLD THEY CONNIVE WITH THESE SUSPECTS WHEN IN JAIL THEY ARE GIVEN ALOT OF MONEY TO BE PUT ON THELIST WHICH THE PRESIDENT ANNOUNCES EVERY YEAR. HOW CAN THEY STOP THE HABBIT. I PITY YOU CHEWE WHO`S FRIEND LOST A LAPTOP IN KITWE TOWN CENTRE. ITS WAKE UP CALL FOR THE POLICE ALL PIPO WILL START INSTANT JMOB JUSTICE.
CONNIVE WITH PRISONER REGARDLESS OF WHAT CRIME TO BE PARDONED BY THE PRESIDENT. LETS DO SOMETHING BOTH THE PRISON WARDERS AND POLICE THE MAGISTRATE ARE DOING THEIR JOB BUT THE POLITICIANS, POLICE AND WARDERS ARE ARE DISAPOINTMENT. WHY NOT BRING LAWS THAT WILL PROHIBIT STEALING.
Instant mob justice is the best punishment for those kitwe punks. I heard that police in kitwe are saying they won’t stop getn money from those jerabo guys. Kitwe will get out of hand very soon if we don’t act. Let’s put matters in our own hands since the police are a let down in kitwe. Attempted murder is the charge for the Lusaka thieves. Congrats police in Lusaka.
Brilliant news, I’m surprised as to how someone would steal a CPU..not only is it bulky but worthless if sold second hand or for parts…I hope the system now back online.
Sharia law or firing squad, which one will be the best punishment for these demons? The best option is for the whole country to do bungee jumping on their balls.
This is great news. Yeah, God we thank you for this…
I wish I had a chance to pass a court ruling on these criminals!!!!!!!!
LAST YEAR I ALMOST BECAME MAD WHEN THIEVES STOLE MY THINGS IN THE CAR WORTH K 58.365.000 00 MILLION IN LUSAKA BY BREAKING MY CAR, AND THAT INCLUDED MY NEW MAC LAPTOP THAT WAS JUST ABOUT THREE WEEKS OLD, MY PASSPORT, BANK CARDS, NIKON CAMERAS, CAR VIDEO SCREEN,ART MARTERIALS AND THINGS I CAN`T EVEN RECALL BECAUSE THEY WERE JUST TOO MANY TO REMEMBER. AND THESE THINGS WERE STOLEN AFTER REMAINING WITH ONLY ONE AND A HULF WEEKS BEFORE I COULD RETURN FOR MY PROJECTS IN NORWAY. WHAT I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IS HOW THE SECURITY IN ZAMBIA WORKS, BECAUSE IF THERE IS ANYTHING THAT IS EASY TO CACH SHOULD BE COMPUTERS. BUT ALL IS JUST IN VAIN. NO WONDER THEY ARE EVEN SAYING THEY WILL CONTINUE GETTING BRIBES FROM CRIMINALS.
IT IS A SHAME!!!!!
Where in the world is one encourged to leave valuables in the car??? Unless of course if your car is an Armoured truck or Tank!!! I feel for you, but it is tempting to say you were asking for it!
I think the appropriate sentence should be attempted mass murder because these patients could have died due to lack of treatment services. It should also be the same for people who plunder national resources. Look at what the consequences of the crime could have been and give the appropriate sentence
This is good news indeed, well done Zambia police.May God punish the criminals.
do a lobotomy on them pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaassssssse. This is where a long nail is pushed through the eyes to the brain.
Who in their right mind would steal from a cancer hospital? These people must be given capital punishment, period.
GREAT JOB LUSAKA POLICE personel . I wish u could treat all cases with all seriouness required. Madam Mary Tembo u r failing the pipo of copperbelt. Dismiss all corrupt officers and hire fresh blood. Government, pay police well. Tapapata.
actually the police should use a scalpel or a sharp object to scrape their eyes out and cut the hands off from the wrist and castrate them.
There is no difference from the money Kapoko stole from the Ministry of health because it was meant to help a sick person some where. Tell Sata to take Kapoko to court or else things will continue missing like that.
All I can say is thank you and may God bless the Lusaka Police force for such a wonderful work. This is how a Police force should be and should work, and shame to those corrupted Police Officers in Kitwe who want to tarnish the good name of our gallant soldiers in uniform.
Ms. Elizabeth Kanjela looks smoking hhhhhoooottttt in ZP uniform; arrest me now madam I’m here, I also have information!
I agree, she can arrest me anytime!
I always get excited when she comes on tv. What a beautiful Nubian lady
Zambia has some of the best investigative cops and they need to be well taken care of and well equipped for the challenges they face.
I don’t understand why someone would go to steal from a hospital…. There is need of surveillance camera’s…
install cctv and infra red alarm system and INSURE all govt property. As for you KANOWENE # 15 that was spy equipment its good you did not accomplish your mission .our shushushuz did the job.
That is sabotage and all those thieves should get proper punishment for the pain they have caused to patients who were supposed to be attended too.
This theft is the work of some two corrup government officials who really want to milk the country
While I agree with most of you here as to why, just why would someone steal from a cancer treatment center. My biggest surprise really is, how in the hell did these thieves manage to get the computers and all out of the center? Those CPU are quite bulky and am sure, someone honestly saw these guys going in and out.
It’s a good thing they recovered these items. I was more concerned about the data on the machines and not the machines themselves. I hope the managers at this center are protecting patients information on these computers. It is CONFIDENTIAL information after all in ZAMBIA….or is it not? And in other news, the contest between Elizabeth Kanjala and Anne Mwitwa, I hereby declare, Anne Mwitwa to be the winner. Guys, Anne looks very soupy. One Zambia….
..computer mice? what is a computer mice? can it by any chance be a computer mouse?
Ba # 30 old prophet. What’s the plural for ‘mouse’? Did you drop out of grade 3?
mouses I guess. lol….
OLD PROPHET. Mice is the plural of mouse which means they were more than one mouse missing. Coming to the thieves who stole this equipment I think the police know these criminals, otherwise how come they managed to corner them in no time. It is just like car thieves, when it involves important person or institution criminals are easily arrested but when it is an individual like me, they will start demaning transport to enable them go round investigating and even demand hard cash for “logistics” without which the case will go nowhere.
Learn the importance of back- up, you cannot have important information at one point and think it is secure. This should serve as wake up call, what if it was a fire? You will sifting through ashes for information.
Kweli zambia ni nchi ya wezi na watu wavivu wasiopenda ama kufanya kazi kwa bidii ili kupata chakula chao.Wajinga wengine hapa wanaona yule mrembo Kanjela pekee bila kuweka makini kwa wizi huu.Hii kukosa kutia makini ndivyo wazambia walivyo kazini pia na ndio huleta umaskini.
We na we tuliya bwana!
All the time mzambia wa zamani vipi? twanaka no tu swahili twenu! nasisi piya mesha safiri nchii zote but we are still zambian and speak other languages but ichi bemba nangula ifitundu fimbi tulalanda!
Ata usiseme wa zambia wezi, kila inchii inao, so come back to earth and be real. Lakini mambo vipi ndugu yetu ya zamani kama ulivyo iweka!
How long are the equipments going to be stocked at magistrate court, are they waiting for Mutembo Nchito to F@##k the suspects?
Stealing such equipment-oohm merciless theives
‘He, however, lamented that three computer keyboards and three computer mice are still missing.’
My neighbour here in Chilenje was eating ubwali with the said items, can ba Kanjela please come and check on this character, please!
@33 MK. That’s exactly where I am going with this…the more I think about it. Honestly, in this day and age where almost any and everything relating to personal information can be digitally stored, I fail to understand WHY they have no backUp for UTH in general. A wake up call indeed. What kind of security do they have in place? Drunk guards? The Director (you know they have a director for everything) needs to be answerable. This is ridiculous! Deploying CCTVwhich is not that costly would be a positive start if anything. If the entire cancer center had these old computers as their network infrastructure then, we are in serious trouble my friends. Honestly, anyone of those sensible patients should now be asking SERIOUS questions about their personal medical records. Just in case.
The thieves are well known by the police and he doctors there at UTH. It was an inside master plan. Shame on you all…doctors, police, nurses and your accomplices…Shaaaa.
“He, however, lamented that three computer keyboards and three computer mice are still missing.” A COMPUTER KEYBOARD AND A MOUSE CAN EVEN BE FOUND IN YOUR CABINETS OR AT YOUR TECHNICIANS OFFICE.
BUT, HAVING SAID THE ABOVE, THANKS GO TO THE POLICE FORCE FOR A JOB WELL DONE. SO, WOMEN POLICE CHIEFS ARE REALLY WORKING.
Are there even camera’s in Hospitals in Zambia or in all government buildings?
Well do ZP and people who gave information that led to the recovery of most equipment. Cage the criminals for life!!!!!!
The only punishment befitting such cruel people is an injection of a terminal cancer causing agent into their bodies so that they feel the impact of what they did. you can’t steal from a hospital. such are people that can steal a fridge at the morgue.
bloggers learn to check the source of the story b4 blogging,most of the bloggers are qnsing if their are CCTV at the hospital.the source of the story starts CANCER PATIENCES AT RISK AS COMPUTERS STORING THIER RECORDS ARE STOLEN.and mr mwaba said the center is equiped with CCTV cameras,so all what we have to blog is to thank the POLICE for recovery the computers and the backup system which need to be put in place.
The Bible says thou Shall Not Steal. We get inspiration from our leaders! These poor guys could have done it after seeing stories about GBM and WINTER. For them, the Police have been brutal to recover the property. What will they do if the two “Hon.” Ministers, are convicted of corruption. NDELOLESYA FYE!!!!!!!!!!
Great work by those police who visit witchdoctors in Chipata compound- please dont feel shy go there every time you want to catch thieves, its helpful. By the way this was a could trace by Dr……….. no need for CCTV
Some staff may be involved in this theft. If they are able to steal equipment where there are CCTV cameras, you now understand why UTH has been without medicine with the doctors stealing them for their private surgeries.
It is really sad that one can steal from the hospital and hope fully this should be the same group which got away with the computers from Chingwere clinic Matero amonth ago
Please Lusakatimes, do print the photos of all the thieves who stole from the UTH’s Cancer unit so that their faces are etched onto all Zambians. These people MUST not be allowed to live normal lives again, never.
The Zambia Police Service must be commended for this wonderful job, but they must ensure that these thugs are taken to court and jailed for up to 30 years with hard labour. There cannot be any development in our country if thugs and thieves keep stealing the gains made for the good of society such stealing from the Cancer Unit.
Cage them, these chaps steal with impunity, no thoughts about how others will be affected.
befitting punishment for these evil bastar.ds stealing from a hospital…if there is such a thing inject them with cancers (testicular, skin, lung cancer everything cancer) with no treatment for them!
Well done keep it up
Thank God the items have been recovered. However, this must be a wake up call for the department to re-alighn their operations by having a central server in a fire proof room which also runs a daily backup. You can consult me and will draw a plan on how you can use Backup Exec with ease and you willbe able to sleep. A sensitive operation like the cancer Clinic should have an off-site backup and have a daily, weekly and monthly backup of patients data in case of theft, natural disasters and fire. Why can’t people that are so educated fail to plan? If you are interested in my suggestion on IT Security reply to my thread and leave your email or just name a nd where to locate you! TJ
Zambia is not a country anymore. How can this happen? I mean, people, think, how can one move 5 installed computer cpus and monitors out of different offices without anyone noticing? How can any sane person even go and try to steal from a hospital? patient data was stolen and could be used for dubious means – I edge the patients to sue the useless PF government. People’s health information is a question of life and death. Actually If you think about a pc, it has no value, only the data on it has the most value. We Zambians are busy digging our own graves every single day. The abnormal is becoming normal.
Patient information should never be stored on PCs. A couple of medium sized servers in a high security room somewhere would be enough to serve a hospital like UTH. PCs should only ever be used to access remote servers and nothing of value to the clinic should be stored on them. That way, a theft of PCs will not compromise anything. This theft could have happened anywhere. In fact they happen all the time. Hospitals are public spaces with people going in and out all the time. Attention must be paid to information security.
this theft was an inside job. the security guard arrested might have just been a scape got. seriously speaking how can one move such big machines in the middle of the night without being noticed. it’s a pity my fellow unza students are fewer at ridgeway and the campus is a little bit far from the campus and most of those guys are pounda generals. otherwise they would have noticed and sorted out those fools before the cops arrived
oh! i meant the hostels are a little bit far from the hospital
experts should give these useless thieves cancer diease, i think there is a way that can be done. Ask dr. mandda if u want consultants.
job well done ma bwana ba cificifi kalebalika god ll rewardc you handsomely
Where is Dr Martin Malama to come and clean kitwe like he did when he was the Commanding Officer copperbelt province? Kitwe police are very corrupt. Ilingi they even ask for talktime money from those boys who hang around the town centre qwaiting nto steal from the hardworking Zambians.
Take them to Mukobeko and hang them high. Thats the only solution.
ITS SEEMS KITWE IS ROTTING SLOWING BECAUSE OF THESE CHAPS. PLEASE DO SOMETHING THE MADAM COMMANDING OFFICER, ITS REALLY OUT OF HAND. THEY ARE USED TO BIG MONEY FROM JERABOS SO WHEN YOU TAKE A PROBLEM LIKE LAPTOP STOLEN FROM YOU THEY JUST LAUGH. KITWE KITWE POLICE WHERE ARE YOU KANSHI?????????????????????????????
kwena eehh! Ninshi twalapola shani with no CT scanner? Do these *****s think?
heartless thieves indeed.
:d
Being a cancer centre, I’m sure they need someone to experiment on. Let them use this Mwale guy, let them scan the sh*t out him day in and day out.
One would have thought there is 24 hours security at UTH and cancer hospital
Damn i forgot the security are usually the culprits in these sort of cases.