Bamenda Regional Hospital “moralizes” the fight against corruption

The administration of the Bamenda Regional Hospital has launched a fund to permit staffs that make money from illegal sources to be able to be able to refund the money to the hospital. The Conscience Fund as named was launched on Wednesday following the refund of FCFA 100.000 by a staff that refused to be named explaining that he has been involved in some illegal financial transactions and by that feels guilty for such extortion. 

Bamenda Regional Hospital

 As to how the Fund was created the Director of the hospital explained “following the sensitization we have been carrying out with the help of the chaplains of the hospital, someone came up with the sum of 100.000FCFA and confessed that he has been involved in exploiting patients; taking money and using it. He said that he knows that this money does not belong to him and that every time that he sees the Director because of the preaching we have been doing against corruption he feels very very bad and this day he decided that he will give this money to the director because it does not belong to him. He gave me 100.000F which was presented here at the coordination meeting and there and then it was decided that a bed should be bought to serve other patients who will be coming here.”

Contextualizing the Conscience Fund concept, Dr Kingue Thompson Njie added “The idea of opening a Conscience Fund came about because we are determined in minimizing corruption at the regional hospital Bamenda; I want say stamping out corruption completely. Hospitals in Cameroon have been identified as breeding ground for corruption and we are not happy about the fact that it doesn’t bring growth to the hospital neither does it bring growth to the country as a whole.”

According to the Director, the functioning of the Conscience Fund depends on the individual decision of those who judge themselves guilty of financial extortion and decide to do a refund. The decision he explained was reached at during the coordination meeting saying “that a Conscience Fund should be opened so that those who want to make things right with the hospital but with God first, they should drop something in that Fund and every time the members of the coordination meeting will decide what the money will be used for.

Dr Mrs Njini Rose Supervisor of the hospital corroborated the director indicating that the Fund is created on the premise that the conscience remains a life’s most compelling judge and that no one will return to such extortion activities after judging self-guilty. Consequently the fund she noted is expected to serve as a moral police in the Bamenda Regional hospital.

While dedicating the bed bought with the takeoff fund deposit, Rev Ngong one of the Chaplains of the hospital told the hospital staff that giving back what has been stolen is just a right thing to do before God.