Online Reporter
LAST week, we carried the story of two student nurses who enrolled for a nursing course at Chitungwiza Central Hospital using fake certificates.
Paidamoyo Samantha Muchira and Makanaka Chatikobo applied for a nursing course using fake Ordinary Level certificates.
The two attended the nursing course for a year before their fake certificates were exposed.
The police are now appealing for information that may lead to the arrest of Paidamoyo and Makanaka.
Chitungwiza Hospital Public Relations manager, Audrey Tasaranarwo, said the two were exposed through verification.
She said the hospital discovered the fraudulent act after verifying the certificates with ZIMSEC.
She said the certificates looked very genuine and those behind the printing must also be brought to book.
Last year, our sister newspaper, The Sunday Mail, reported that at least 33 fake doctors and tutors were arrested at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals in 2023 while 11 others were arrested since the beginning of 2024.
The referral hospital also indicated that the fake doctors who were arrested last year did not manage any patient.
The hospital said the institution’s surveillance team picked the criminals. Hospital authorities said the bogus doctors and bogus tutors who extort prospective student nurses, as well as thieves who steal from both staff members and patients, were some of the criminals who have been picked up and handed over to the police.
They said Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals is a vast institution with close to 400 doctors of all professional levels and a total staff establishment of close to 4 000.
It’s very clear that we have a number of con artists who have made it their mission to try their luck to make money through masquerading as doctors and even nurses.
This is very concerning because this is a very sensitive sector where the experts are dealing with matters of life and death.
We salute the authorities who have been making sure that these con artists are exposed and arrested.
But, we believe that more needs to be done.Like in the case of the two nurses at Chitungwiza Hospital, surely the authorities there have a number of questions to answer.
For them to try and tell us that the ‘certificates’ of the two nurses looked genuine is an insult.
The authorities are in those positions to ensure that they can detect even the best of the fake documents. It’s not their duty to say whether this certificate looks genuine or not.
We have the people who are employed to do that job and they will provide the answers based on what is in their database.
This should have been the starting point for the authorities at Chitungwiza Hospital.
They needed to verify the certificates first before enrolling the students for the nursing courses.
For them to enrol those two students and let them study for a year is unacceptable.
Heads must roll for them because this is sheer incompetence on the part of the hospital’s leadership.
Mathew Masinge