Corruption Kills: Donated Medical Equipment Stolen
The importation and distribution of medicines is riddled with corruption, which impacts directly on the standard of living of the entire population.
The German Hammer Forum threatened to quit from Yemen if the sequestration of the organization’s containers continued in Hodiedah port.
The organization’s coordinator, Dr. Ali Al-Zakhmi, said that the organization is studying pulling out from Yemen if the health sector’s authorities continued their rigidity against them despite the charitable health services they provide to the Yemeni children in particular.
Al- Zakhmi said that the higher medical authority is still sequestrating 93 medicines and medical equipment packages, which the organization sent to al-Thawra Hospital in Taiz, since last February. He added that the organization donated these medical appliances and medicines to Taiz al-Thawra Hospital yet the higher medical authority holds them under the excuse that they contain foreign medical appliances incompatible to the specifications.
Al-Zakhmi added that, “This allegation is groundless, because when we visited the held container we found that there were only 30 packages left, and no one knows where the other 63 have gone.”
Al-Zakhmi wondered that if these medical items are not compatible to the Yemeni standards, why did the medial authority withdraw them from the port without the organization’s consent and used then for unknown purposes.
The Yemen Observer tried to contact the higher medical authority and the Ministry of Health but could not reach them.
The organization’s coordinator said that it stopped sending new previously promised shipments to Yemen until the seized medicines in Hodiedah are released.
Al-Zakhmi added that the stopped shipment included modern obstetrics operation room and an ambulance equipped with new born infant requirements.
The organization addressed the president to order the sequestered medicines be released and put an end to the unwarranted actions imposed by the Ministry of Health against the international charitable organizations working in Yemen.
The message to the president demanded holding accountable those who stole the German organization’s medicines, and requested stopping the arbitrary offensives against the organizations that provide services to Yemeni children.
The organization has been working in Yemen for over ten years, and sent about 820 medical cases, most of them children for treatment in Germany. They included diseases that cannot be treated in Yemen such as pediatrics, caries and renal diseases and burns. There are now 28 Yemeni children in the German hospitals being treated at the organization’s expense. More than 40 cases are expected to be sent for treatment in Germany next October.
