By Precila Takabvirakare
Gutu Health Promotions Officer (HPO) Tonderai Chibura has warned communities in Gutu against fake doctors in the district mostly targeting rural communities.
The fake doctors are said to moving around claiming to be from government offering free scan services and asking patients to pay for herbs that one would have been prescribed.
Speaking during a media engagement meeting held at Gutu Rural Hospital on August 2, Chibura said they received reports about a team of fake doctors who were moving around the district claiming to be from the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC).
“We received reports about a team of fake doctors that is currently in the district targeting mainly rural areas claiming to be from the government. The team is allegedly offering free scan services and ordering people to buy prescribed herbs from them but we do not know them as we did not give any one a clearance letter at district level to do such campaigns. This team targeted remote areas such as Chingombe, Muchekayaora, Chepiri, Munyikwa, Mazuru, Magombedze Chitsa and Chinyika,” said Chibura.
He said this was affecting members of the community as people were asked to abandon their prescribed medication from hospital in favor of their often expensive herbs.
“This incident greatly affected us as we faced challenges during our integrated community outreach campaigns. We found out that people were asked to change their prescribed medication from the hospital in favor of the herbs that they would have been prescribed. This is a great challenge as the community lost their money and lives,” added Chibura.
Chibura further said they had communicated with village health workers to raise awareness so that people will be aware of how the government operates and prevent such scenarios.
“We have communicated with our Village Health Workers to raise awareness within their respective communities so that the community knows that government services and medication are for free they are not supposed to be asked to pay for any services and to know that if there is any government program it will be communicated through village health workers and local clinics,” he said.
The meeting was aimed at enlightening members of the media on how they should report health related stories to prevent causing alarm and panic to the public.
Chibura said as part of the Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) the media was very important in circulating information regarding health related issues thus the media should verify facts and report correct information.
“Under the RCCE pillar, the media is very important in circulating health related information by raising awareness and alerts. When doing so I encourage the media to verify facts and statistics with relevant authorities before publishing to avoid causing alarm and panic to members of the public, said Chibura.
He also encouraged journalists to be careful with their headlines when it comes to health reporting and to be careful when dealing with statistics.
“I also encourage you to be careful on the issue of headlines because these may have negative impacts in the community and some may have a negative impact on the country’s reputation. Also you should be very careful when dealing with statistics and names,” he said.
He further urged the media and district health officials to work together to make sure the community gets correct information regarding the particular topic.
The MoHCC is holding media engagements across the province and have so far covered Chivi, Masvingo and Gutu where similar calls were made.
