A Cameroonian man has been arrested in Malawi for removing drips connected to cholera patients at Limbe Health Centre.
Local media reports that the 33-year-old suspect claimed to be a health worker when he visited the hospital at Limbe, Blantyre last Friday.
He was removing drips from patients without authorisation and it baffled the health officials at the hospital because they did not know who was responsible.
One of the employees said they would put drips on patients but when coming back they would find that they have been removed and they wondered who was doing this.
“Now these patients are dehydrated and we are understaffed, yet someone is doing something like this,” the health worker said.
Luck eventually eluded him when one of the nurses on duty caught him in the act and he tried to flee the scene.
He was immediately apprehended, subdued and beaten before the hospital authorities called police to whisk him away.
It was later learnt during interrogation, he confessed to being a coffin maker struggling to make sales at his business.
Spokesperson for the Blantyre District Health Office, Chrissy Banda, confirmed the incident to the press. She, however, said said they were yet to ascertain the intention of the suspect.
Malawi has been hit hard by Cholera which has killed almost a thousand people since March, 2022. The country has reportedly recorded 21,024 infections since the outbreak and about 860 people are currently in treatment centres nationwide.