Punish crooked doctors

What you need to know:

  • Almost every sector has a few rotten individuals who spend most of their time figuring out how to take shortcuts for their own benefit.
  • This unethical conduct that goes against the Hippocratic Oath these health professionals have sworn to uphold, as the obligation of proper conduct to save lives.

There are some greedy people, who care about nothing else and will pursue their personal gain, even when putting the lives of other people at grave risk.

They are the driving force behind the endemic corruption that continues to eat into our national social fabric. The finger is often pointed at the police service, some of whose officers are notorious for extorting bribes or having their palms greased so they can look the other side as crimes are committed.

However, they are not the only culprits. Almost every sector has a few rotten individuals who spend most of their time figuring out how to take shortcuts for their own benefit.

It is, therefore, hardly surprising to hear that crooked doctors in private practice have been colluding with some families to falsify Covid-19 test results so that their kin can be buried without observing the Health ministry restrictions.

 They, of course, do this at a fee, putting the lives of many other people at risk of contracting the deadly disease. This unethical conduct that goes against the Hippocratic Oath these health professionals have sworn to uphold, as the obligation of proper conduct to save lives. It proclaims that the first duty of any doctor is to do no harm.

The Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board, which regulates the practice of medicine, has done well by cracking down on errant professionals and revoking their licences and shutting down sub-standard facilities.

The board should take a keen interest in its errant members falsifying Covid-19 test results. It is quite callous of them to undermine the efforts being made to protect families and communities. Health professionals should not be exploiting the agony of bereaved families.

It is, therefore, encouraging that doctors have blown the whistle on their own colleagues who engage in such malpractices. They must face the music.