The Ministry of Health in Mufulira district on the Copperbelt province has refuted allegations that medical personnel at Kawama East Clinic were denying patients medicine.
Mufulira District Medical Officer Chikafuna Banda dismissed the allegations as false and mere rumors by certain people who wanted to paint the government a bad picture.
“We have investigated and discovered that these were just allegations by certain members of the community who wanted special kind of attention and medicines that the public health institution could not provide in their given capacity” he said.
Dr. Banda explained that the ministry of health had a system it was using to distribute medicines throughout the country and people should not compare with medicines they were given when they visited private health institutions.
“As a ministry and as a district we are very stable in terms of medicines and we urge members of the community to visit their nearest health centers when they didn’t feel well because the ministry has enough medicine to cater for everyone,” he said.
Earlier , concerned residents of Mufulira’s kawama community stormed ZANIS alleging that government through the Ministry of Health was not proving medicines at Kawama East Clinic.
The residents claimed that each time they visited the clinic, they were given prescriptions to buy medicines.
They said Panadol was the only medicine available saying they were given prescriptions to buy medicines from pharmacies claiming the clinic had no medicines in stock.
It’s true, we only have Panado in government hospitals.
It is a tradition in this country now – with the proliferation of NGOs to criticize anything govt. Any NGO that supports govt efforts gets no funding from the donors I presume – that’s the new order.