When hospital workers acquire unexplained wealth
The WatchWoman Column. By Doris Yaa Dartey
What do you do when someone you know suddenly becomes wealthy and you cannot rationalise the sources of the person’s wealth? I can think of two options. The first option is to engage in juicy gossips in your attempt to figure out what the person might be up to in the money-making realm. In the other option, you gather the courage to confront this matter frontally by directly asking the person what he/she does that generate that much money. Both methods are legitimate and may not necessarily provide the desired answers.
CONFRONTING CORRUPT PRACTICES
No one begrudges anyone the status of wealth. But since money does not grow on trees, the sources of wealth must make sense. Unless a person either inherits wealth or makes a big win at the lottery, when there is incongruity between a person’s wealth status and what he/she earns from especially the monthly salaries of a job, we must seek to probe and understand the sources of such unexplained wealth.
A few years ago, I applied the second option by directly asking a cousin of mine who suddenly came into money. Prior to posing the big question, we had not seen each other for about three years. The absence made the newly acquired health status very obvious to me. I noticed that both he and his children had changed and acquired new characters. Whilst my cousin had become a pompous person, his children had become disrespectful in ways that were bewildering. Also, they had all gained much weight as if in correspondence with the wealth weight.
So I did take a big risk by popping what today I will label as the corruption question: “What is the source of your wealth?” He could have retorted rudely with: “It’s none of your business” and cut me off his life. Or, he could have chosen to tell me a lie: “Oh, I won the lottery.” But instead, he surprised me by spelling out the truth to me with an honest and bold answer to my inquisitive question.
A RICH PHARMACIST IN A STATE HOSPITAL
My cousin Mr Ofoe-Mensah (not his real name) was a pharmacist of state-owned hospitals. He was on the payroll of the state, which was not the kind of money anyone rolls out to become wealthy. From not even owning a piece of land prior to the three years when we last met, was like day and night in wealth-land. Suddenly, he owned an impressive mansion in an upscale neighbourhood of Accra. And, he was working toward other property acquisitions.
The source of his sudden wealth was two-pronged, and they operated in tandem. On the first front was the money he made from the suppliers of drugs and other supplies for the pharmacy department, of which he was the director. He had cosy illicit arrangements with pharmaceutical suppliers, who added some amount to the true cost of the drugs to the hospital.
That extra cost (the corruption top-up) was money that the supplier directly paid to Ofoe-Mensah. This meant that on any day, any week and any month, all supplies purchased by the hospital and sold to patients carried a percentage that was the direct cut to enrich Ofoe-Mensah. The cash was paid upfront, in envelops; delivered at specific locations. Periodically, he took care of his staff by giving them pittances. The staff received such gifts with much appreciation; no questions asked. Often, the staff members were informed that a certain supplier brought them a little gift. I doubt if the staff knew of the extent to which the payments of unlawful moneys were well-orchestrated.
Another method Ofoe-Mensah used to acquire wealth was through becoming the sole source of certain drugs and hospital supplies in the general neighbourhood of the government hospital. To be effective at gaining a monopoly in the drug selling business, he opened a pharmacy shop in close proximity to the hospital. It just so happened that his pharmacy shop was the only one in the vicinity of the hospital. So he decided which drugs and medical supplies will be sold at the hospital pharmacy and which ones will be sold exclusively at his private shop, creating a convenient scarcity situation.
So when a patient came in and the drug prescribed by a doctor was on the list of his own pharmacy shop, he directed the patient appropriately. Being a scarce drug, the patient had no choice but to walk over to the neighbourhood pharmacy shop to buy; no questions asked, only gratitude for finding a scarce medication.
The way Ofoe-Mensah explained things to me was that he was being wise. He did not find anything wrong with his sources of wealth. He did not feel guilty. For him, it was only normal that he was taking advantage of his public office for private gain. As he put it, “Everyone does it.” He considered himself as lucky that God placed him in that position. Besides, he maintained that it was the suppliers of drugs to government pharmacy departments who make the arrangement; and he could not turn it down, because after all, everyone does it! Ethics had gone to the pigs and rolled through the mud!
I recall the number of times I visited him at the hospital and bore witness to patients lounging on hard wooden benches, waiting for their names to be called out so they will pay and collect their medications. I tried to imagine the percentage of profit Ofoe-Mensah made off each patient in the queue. I also paid regular visits to his pharmacy shop and observed the brisk business.
To think that such practices went on for several years still blows my mind. How many poor people parted with money they could barely afford to buy drugs at inflated prices? That way, the elite hospital executives profiteer over the poor sick!
CALLING PEOPLE TO ORDER
Over the period of his career that span over two decades, Ofoe-Mensah was the director of pharmacy in three government hospitals. He practiced the same illicit acts of corruption. He was never queried. He was never challenged for doing anything wrong. It was apparent that he had become very wealthy but apparently, her wealth was treated as if it was a normal progression in the career of a government pharmacist. Who should have called him to order? The hospital medical directors in charge?
It appears that our government hospitals are susceptible to corruption. Next week, I will bring you the highlights of a fascinating research report on the incidence of corruption in hospitals in the erstwhile three regions of the north (Northern, Upper East and Upper West). Although the study focused on the northern part of Ghana, it gives a good snapshot of the acts of corruption in our government hospitals.
