The lives of more than 300 cancer patients listed for routine checks at the Cancer Hospital in Lusaka remain in danger as they have not received their therapy for the past four days following last week’s theft of computers and various vital accessories.
Police have so far arrested five suspects in the theft of the K1.5 billion worth of hospital equipment.
University Teaching Hospital (UTH) Managing Director Lackson Kasonka has made a passionate appeal to the courts to expeditiously handle the theft case involving the computers so that treatment of the affected patients could be resumed and operations normalised at the US$10 million specialist cancer treatment centre.
A cardinal component that had hampered the hospital services was the memory drive, which stored dates for the patients that had undergone CT-Scan.
“The department has closed entirely because it cannot function at all without the stolen equipment. Therefore, everyone scheduled to receive treatment is being turned away and some of them come from far places,” Dr Kasonka said.
He said he was concerned over the lives of the cancer patients and that it was important that the matter was expeditiously dealt with in the courts so that the machines could be reinstalled.
Under the circumstances, the equipment would have to be held on and adduced in court as evidence in the case involving the five suspects behind the theft.
“We can’t rule out that the lives of the cancer patients who are supposed to undergo therapy in the past four days are in danger, of course because of the continued absence of the computers. I can hope that this matter is expeditiously concluded so that the equipment can be restored. The recovered equipment is in police custody being kept as evidence in the meantime,” Dr Kasonka said.
He said the other alternative was to contact suppliers of the equipment to supply a new kit which was worth K8 billion but this avenue could take more than two weeks.
“This is another option that we can take, but due to import procedures this can take about two weeks. That is why I am hoping this case can be urgently concluded. This was a theft against the nation because people are suffering as a result of this,” he said.
He praised police for making quick headways in recovering the stolen property which had raised more questions as to the motive of the theft.
And Lusaka Province Police chief, Solomon Jere confirmed in a separate interview the arrest of the fifth suspect during a late-night Saturday operation in Lusaka’s Chunga Township.
In the process, more equipment was found with the latest suspect.
“We had an operation and apprehended another male suspect in the theft of the hospital equipment bringing the number of suspects to five now,” Dr Jere said.
Among the equipment that were stolen were the computer, five monitors and two key boards labeled GRZ-CDH.
Others were a safe belonging to the Zambia Institute for Diplomatic Studies, 16 unused cheque books while the suspects were also found in possession of breaking-in tools.
[Times of Zambia]
What is ridiculous is the fact that patient records were stored on a simple hard drive.Such important documents are supposed to be stored on a server-in a server room.Such important documents are also supposed to be backed up.whats even surprising is Dr Kasonka talking about buying new computers for K8 billion- very poor management skills.We call that throwing money to a problem.You should talk about backing up data,you should talk about what measures you are putting in place to secure patients personal files.
Yes my Bro I agree with you. If the hospital had put such measures in place , there is no need of looking for that pc if Data was kept on the Server or by means of a Backup. In Zambia we only learn when something of this nature has happened. Please Dr Kasonka, we are there as IT People to advise your office.Osa nvela Kasol to employee IT staff as this was going to be avoided at all cost. We also have a Technic in IT for OUT OF SITE backup.Meaning , after backin your data you could have been keeping your backups at offsite a place like State House somewhere there.If you need any help please call us on 0977764228.
very disappointing coming from educated well trained doctors. Surely no backup for such sensitive info. It is common knowledge even to students never to store information in one computer or flash. That is why there is backup, even antiviruses come with online backup options. Shame UTH doctors!!!!!
#1, IN FACT IT WASN’T STORED ON HARD DRIVE BUT ON MEMORY ACCORDING TO LT. A MEMORY DOESN’T STORE DATA ON A PERMANENT BASIS. IT’S WORK AREA. ONE HAS TO SAVE HI/HER WORK ON HARD DRIVE OR EXTERNAL DRIVE. LT, FIND EXPERTS TO WRITE ON SOME OF THESE ARTICLES TO AVOID MISINFORMING THE READERSHIP. FROM THIS ARTICLE ONE MAY CONCLUDE THAT THE HOSPITAL WASN’T EVEN BACKING UP DATA.
They should fire the IT manager at UTH..he should have advised the ‘learned’ doctors Anyway maybe the cancer patients now have a chance of survival since no one will be injecting toxic chemicals into their bodies.
I’m a Computer Certified Systems Engineer. What LT is talking about is the license dongle which looks like a flash memory stick. Those foolish thieves thoght it was a flash memory stick and must have sold it for K50 pin to some one who doesn’t know anything about dongles. Please return it to CDH before lives are lost.
i am concerned with the security at the hospital. surely such costly and life supporting infrastructure need proper security. just guards, is not enough. lets be pro active on certain things. we do not live in a perfect world. there are pipo like these thieves who cannot realise that one day, themselves, their own children will need the services of these facilities.
it is a wake up call for the authorities
mistake: kasonka has no right to speak about cancer hospital, he is a director for UTH and not cancer. The director for cancer hospital is Dr lishimpi. Cancer and uth are two seperate hospitals under different management. What interest does he have?
never loose hope my sisters and brothers, your God is alive trust him whatever the conditions you are going through. i know for a fact that God did not give us a poor nation but a rich one only that it has not been managed well. it’s well with u!
castrate that chap..he’s so silly..
Ba Zask ati what interest has Kasonka in this? hmmm i’m wondering i think his interest is the lives of the people unless you want to tell us anything, next you will say what is the interest of the police hehehehehe, for your information UTH and CDH have very good relations and UTH is CDHs big brother…. and the two institutions share a lot, for example i had a sister who was in a ward in UTH but was scheduled to weekly visit CDH for treatment. and CDH has little bed space so some patients for CDH are based at UTH and eat the Food and some basic drugs from UTH. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT BEFORE YOU START POSTING IT WILL REALY HELP YOUR ANALYSIS OF ISSUES.
How do you keep records on a CPU hard drive a big health institution like the UTH…its high time you guys invested in centralised servers located in secure underground/ basement location.
The third world is in Zambians’ minds hence the state of the country
Boys and girls on Net, get facts right.The computers stolen are from the server room where they keep and store back up, foolish you!the fact is that the server has been stolen, period!