EIGHT nurses of the Nelson Mandela Academic hospital in Mthatha have been arrested for allegedly stealing medicine worth about R200000, the Eastern Cape health department said yesterday.
Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the nurses were arrested on Wednesday.
The police's Colonel Mzukisi Fatyela said the group appeared briefly in the Mthatha magistrate's court on Wednesday and were granted bail of R1500 each. Their case has been remanded to December 14.
"The nurses were selling schedule 5 drugs ... which are used to treat specific problems. We have identified four more nurses who are involved but who were off duty at the time of the arrests. We will hopefully arrest them today," he said.
Kupelo said the arrests vindicated the department which, despite spending a substantial portion of its annual budget on medicines, regularly received complaints that hospitals or clinics were out of stock of particular drugs.
He said it was clear that staff sold stock to private practitioners or their own relatives. Kupelo said at least another 23 department officials would be arrested shortly as part of a larger fraud and corruption probe.
Kupelo said a 39-year-old former employee was arrested at the weekend and appeared in the Zwelitsha magistrate's court on Monday on a charge of defrauding the department of R3,7million.
The ex-employee, a personal assistant to a director of primary healthcare, had been suspended, but resigned before disciplinary proceedings got under way.
More officials were expected to be arrested in connection with the scam, Kupelo said.
Nurses arrested for 'theft of medicines'
EIGHT nurses of the Nelson Mandela Academic hospital in Mthatha have been arrested for allegedly stealing medicine worth about R200000, the Eastern Cape health department said yesterday.
Spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said the nurses were arrested on Wednesday.
The police's Colonel Mzukisi Fatyela said the group appeared briefly in the Mthatha magistrate's court on Wednesday and were granted bail of R1500 each. Their case has been remanded to December 14.
"The nurses were selling schedule 5 drugs ... which are used to treat specific problems. We have identified four more nurses who are involved but who were off duty at the time of the arrests. We will hopefully arrest them today," he said.
Kupelo said the arrests vindicated the department which, despite spending a substantial portion of its annual budget on medicines, regularly received complaints that hospitals or clinics were out of stock of particular drugs.
He said it was clear that staff sold stock to private practitioners or their own relatives. Kupelo said at least another 23 department officials would be arrested shortly as part of a larger fraud and corruption probe.
Kupelo said a 39-year-old former employee was arrested at the weekend and appeared in the Zwelitsha magistrate's court on Monday on a charge of defrauding the department of R3,7million.
The ex-employee, a personal assistant to a director of primary healthcare, had been suspended, but resigned before disciplinary proceedings got under way.
More officials were expected to be arrested in connection with the scam, Kupelo said.
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