Health workers conspire with patients to steal free drugs – Official
Story by Victor Itodo ABUH
The Kano State Government has revealed that workers at various health facilities across the state are conspiring with beneficiaries of the state’s free drugs programme to steal medications, undermining the success of the initiative.
This disclosure was made by the Commissioner of Health, Abubakar Labaran Yusuf, during a stakeholders’ engagement organised by the Centre for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI).
Highlighting the severity of the issue, Yusuf said:
“That one is a very serious issue that is hindering the process of the programme (free drugs in Kano).
“A lot of people, both from the workers and the beneficiaries of the programme, connive to steal the drugs which is a sort of depriving persons who really need the drugs from getting the services.
“This is one of the problems that we are addressing and we have succeeded greatly but still there are some pockets of thefts in facilities.”
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To combat these thefts, Yusuf announced plans to transition all records to an electronic system and introduce utilisation registers.
He explained that the registers would document the details of every patient accessing the services, including their name, address, and phone number, to enable thorough cross-checks.
In addition to addressing drug theft, Dr. Labaran voiced concerns over the low rate of women attending antenatal and postnatal care, particularly in rural areas.
He warned that this trend contributes significantly to maternal mortality.
“The implication of women not coming for antenatal care and for delivery is untimely death because if you do not access humans in pregnancy, you cannot plan for delivery and unplanned deliveries are usually the ones that come with complications and issues which mostly occur in remote areas that you cannot even transport the woman to the centre she should be taken care of.
“These contribute to high maternal mortalities in the whole northern part of Nigeria and Kano in particular.
“We have seen that. We are coming up with figures as we have done a year’s study in most of our communities. We did verbal autopsy and we are going to come up with actual maternal mortalities spread in Kano,” Yusuf added.
He revealed that the state government has initiated a comprehensive renovation of healthcare facilities across Kano and is recruiting more health workers to enhance care quality and support safe deliveries.
Oluyemi Abodunrin, Senior Technical Advisor at CCSI, highlighted the purpose of the stakeholder meeting, noting that it was designed to review the effectiveness of Kano State’s policies on women’s health and seek strategies for improvement to benefit women and girls in the state.
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