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Police hold woman for impersonating nurse
What you need to know:
- Ms Grace Opio, the officer-in-charge of the ward, said the suspect had been posing as a nurse in the ward mostly at night.
- The principal hospital administrator, Mr Salim Kivejinja Muwabe, urged patients to be vigilant.
MBALE. Police are holding a 22-year-old woman for allegedly posing as a nurse at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital to extort money from patients.
The Elgon Region police spokesperson, Mr Sowedi Manshur, on Monday said: “We want to know how she entered the hospital and started treating people without the management detecting.”
He said preliminary investigations indicate that there was negligence by the management of the hospital.
The suspect, a resident of Bumbeza village, Buwalasi Sub-county in Sironko District, was arrested by police officers in the hospital’s general ward last Saturday after a tip-off by a patient.
According to patients, the suspect had been masquerading as a nurse for three days and was administering treatment.
“We thought she was a nurse. She attended to us and even asked for some money and we promised to give her,” one of the patients told Daily Monitor.
Ms Judith Nambozo, another patient, said the suspect was clad in a nurse’s uniform.
“We could not know because she was in a uniform like other health workers,” she said.
The senior nursing officer, Ms Christine Limio, said they only came to know about the matter after some patients started complaining about the suspect.
“We received complaints from patients that there was somebody whom they don’t know in the ward, pretending to be a nurse,” Ms Limio said.
She said they immediately alerted the hospital security personnel to track her.
“Indeed, we found her busy examining patients and she was arrested,” Ms Limio said.
Upon interrogation, Ms Limio said the suspect told them that she was a medical student at Salim Nursing School. “We later found out that it was not true,” she added.
“She was posing as a nurse so as to extort money from patients,” Ms Limio said.
Ms Grace Opio, the officer-in-charge of the ward, said the suspect had been posing as a nurse in the ward mostly at night.
“Even I myself saw her examining patients and taking notes,” Ms Opio said.
The principal hospital administrator, Mr Salim Kivejinja Muwabe, urged patients to be vigilant.
“It’s the responsibility of the patients to report such cases before it’s too late,” he said.
Investigations are ongoing.
