Healthcare workers stationed at Gokwe North District have been ordered to return part of the vaccination funds that they were granted late last year.
The money was disbursed late and had already been decimated by inflation when it reached the beneficiaries, and to the healthcare workers’ shock, they were asked to deposit some of the money into the hospital account.
It is not clear why the workers were asked to return some of the funds as the District nursing officer(DNO) and the accounts department gave different reasons.
The DNO said the hospital account had no money for bank charges whilst the accounts department said the fund did not have bank charges.
In another development that points to possible abuse of funds, two environmental health technicians from Zumba Clinic have not received their money three months after the date of payment.
When asked why it has taken so long to pay them, the DNO said, “they will get their money. We will see in which program can we fit them in.”
This has raised more questions than answers, with some healthcare workers suspicious that some people could be financially benefitting from programs that they never attended. A nurse aide who refused to be named said:
This has highlighted our case, we have always said people benefit from programmes which they never attend and this is a typical example.
There are some healthcare workers who appeared on the list that was seen by this reporter who benefitted from outreach programmes but were asked to make some refunds.
The community department and DNO were attending outreach programmes most of the time but it is not clear whether they will also make refunds.
Bizarrely, some healthcare workers who took part in outreach programmes were not asked to make refunds but are paying for static vaccination campaigns, yet they took part in the former.