SIERRA LEONE-HEALTH: Police Hunt For Quack Doctors and Peddlers

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Apr 30 1997 (IPS) - Officials of the Central Medical Stores with aid from a crack police squad are waging war against quack doctors and illegal peddlers who sell expired drugs and offer unprofessional health care to the public.

“We figure that this development is becoming alarming and the vulnerable members of the public may die in the hands of these quacks,” said Bassie Turay, chief pharmacist in this West African nation.

Throughout the weekend and on Monday and Tuesday of this week, the special police unit in league with officials of the Central Medical Stores, raided dozens of mini stores in the densely populated eastern parts of Freetown.

Several boxes of expired drugs were seized from quack doctors and taken to the Medical Stores where they will be burned in public, Turay told IPS on Wednesday.

“Our operations are not going to be limited to Freetown alone. If it weren’t for the volatile security situation, we would be traversing the length and breadth of the country, seeking these quacks,” Turay added.

And, it is the interior of the country, where about 85 percent of the country’s approximately 4.6 million people live, that the situation is most serious.

A six-year long civil war between the government and rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) destroyed many hospitals and left most of the infrastructure in the rural areas in shambles.

“I believe this is why the quack doctors are having a field day,” explained Sahr Mandeh, senior dispenser in the war-ravaged eastern town of Kono, some 300 kms from the capital Freetown. “Indeed, medical costs are high and so most rural people resort to buying drugs from illegal doctors, or “peppe doctas” as they are called.”

Also, only about 30 percent of the country’s people are literate, which makes the majority more vulnerable to the illegal drug peddlars and quack doctors.

During the military reign of Captain Valentine Strasser (1992- 1996), the government decreed that all drug sellers should obtain licenses and be certified. This, along with required laboratory tests on the quality of drugs entering the country, forced unqualified dispensers and fake drug peddlers underground.

But the war and change in government has given the illegal peddlers the chance to re-enter the scene.

“Today, all they have to show for their pharmacies are little briefcases which are studded with an assortment of drugs, many of which are expired anyway,” a police spokesman told IPS on Wednesday. “When we arrest them, we confiscate their drugs and charge them in court. We have dozens of such cases.”

But the authorities are far from winning the battle. Reaching the interior is still not feasible for the police, especially given recent reports of cease-fire violations in the north and southeast.

“We don’t have the requisite manpower, not to talk of the financial resources,” said Turay. “Our problems are made even more difficult because of sporadic bursts of violence in the interior.”

Turay says however that his team is currently combing parts of the capital and is hopeful the violations will be brought under control.

“If it weren’t for the volatile security situation, we would be traversing the length and breadth of the country, seeking these quacks,” explained Turay.

Along with the police raids, the authorities have also launched a massive sensitisation campaign. Radio and TV dramas show people dying in the hands of quack doctors, while other broadcasts centre on the police raids, the trials and imprisonment of the fake doctors.

But some observers doubt that these efforts will pay off.

“These peppe doctas are only fending for their living,” said Joseph Sandy, a civil servant in the capital. “What else can they do when jobs here are almost impossible to get. Maybe all the authorities need to do is regularise their activities.”

The hazards posed by these quacks range from selling the wrong drugs to unsuspecting patients or even giving them overdoses. Just last weekend, genuine doctors battled round the clock to save Mary Bangura (25), who was hospitalised after a “peppe docta” overdosed her with the wrong drug.