The Sunday Mail
BARELY had I settled on a long bench at a hospital where I had accompanied my wife for review, when I heard people whistling and shouting awkwardly at the health facility.
On rushing to investigate, I saw a woman aged around 35 being pummelled by nurses, other hospital staff and some visitors.
Her crime: She had been caught helping herself to food meant for patients at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals. Of all the crimes one can commit, how can someone steal from sick people?
People have lost morals to the point of doing the unthinkable. This could surely be a sign of the end times because some of the happenings are just too ghastly to contemplate.
Hospitals and other medical facilities have become hunting grounds for thieves.
All they do is feign sickness before sneaking into wards, where they help themselves to food, clothes, cell phones, cash and anything they can lay their hands on.
Also targeted are valuables belonging to the institutions, for example, printers, syringes, drips and needles.
Some people are usually seen making beelines to hospitals during lunchtime and suppertime to help themselves to food meant for patients.
All they do is sit in a corner and tuck into the food with neither the patients nor the hospital staff noticing.
Fruits and drinks brought by relatives and friends are not spared.
Some hospital staffers may be involved in the scam, only God knows.
A sick person’s food is something one should never play with. Sick people should eat well, even if they are not active. They need nutrients to keep alive, fight infections and replace lost nutrients.
Sick people often have poor appetite.
Doctors monitor one’s food consumption to assess progress on patients. However, they are being deprived of the opportunity to make correct conclusions by the thieves.
It has become so risky that some patients are being physically, verbally and sexually attacked by this new breed of thieves.
“The world has become something else. One now needs a gun when going to hospital because bands of criminals have invaded these health facilities, rendering them risky. The gangs are so daring that they even steal from parked cars.
A friend of mine recently lost his car battery to thieves after he had visited his ailing brother,” Mr Thomas Mutenzi of Glen Norah told this writer.
“Without suspecting anything, my friend got into his car and tried to turn on the engine to no avail. When he investigated further, he discovered that his battery had been stolen,” he said.
The thieves target car radios, batteries, spare wheels, jacks, wheel spanners and wheel covers. People who leave cash in cars have often been left counting losses.
Those using the bushy path to Sally Mugabe Central Hospital (formerly Harare Central Hospital) have often been attacked by the thieves. It is not unusual to find empty wallets, handbags and identity cards strewn in the grass, a clear sign that thieves operate there.
Criminals often disguise themselves as hospital staff and target those asking for directions and they lead them to secluded places, before robbing them.
Dubious characters also present themselves as people offering cheap X-ray services and medication before vanishing with people’s hard-earned money.
Unregistered funeral service providers are also a cause for concern at hospitals, where they lure clients with rock-bottom prices. But wait until death visits and you will shudder to think where their offers to assist you would have disappeared to.
Gentle reader, of all the evil one can do, stealing from the sick is disgusting.
Inotambika mughetto.
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