Somaliland: Burao Residents Protested Against the High Cost of Medical Supplies in the Government Hospital

     
 The residents of Burao town came out in droves to demonstrate about exorbitant prices of medical supplies and services. According to information reaching us the minister of health development Dr.Hassan Ismael Yusuf who was on a working visit to Burao has turned a deaf ear despite the residents' pleas for his intervention.
Many people who had lost their livelihood during the drought that had wiped out most of their livestock lamented that the public hospital had become more expensive than private hospital. 

A poor mother called Halimo speaking to Star TV said that the doctors and nurses at the institution were colluding to fleece them of their money. Medicine that is provided free of charge by international non-governmental organization is sold to unsuspecting members of the public. 

A man who recently lost all his livestock to drought said:

 'I have no job or livelihood I'm sick and cannot afford to pay for medicine this is causing me a lot of distress since these people understand nothing other than money.'

An elder known as Abdi Madoobe called on the minister to investigate the hospital which no longer serves the public but has become a business enterprise for those charged with the care of the sick. 

A man who had just arrived from Burao town to transfuse blood to a sick patient was told that it costs Somaliland Shillings 300,000 to take specimen of blood. He had no otherwise rather than go back to town. It was later confirmed the patient who needed the blood died following bureaucratic handicap of the hospital administrators. 

By: Guled Abdi Mahir 

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