Kick­backs scan­dal rocks hos­pital

FRESH alleg­a­tions of uneth­ical con­duct have sur­faced at Pari­renyatwa Group of Hos­pit­als, with the Asso­ci­ation of Health­care Fun­ders of Zim­b­abwe form­ally accus­ing Omni­path Med­ical Labor­at­or­ies of oper­at­ing an illi­cit sample col­lec­tion point from a parked vehicle inside the hos­pital’s cas­u­alty area — a setup allegedly fuelled by kick­backs involving hos­pital staff.

The latest rev­el­a­tion fol­lows a Check Point invest­ig­a­tion last week, which revealed that some doc­tors and nurses at major pub­lic hos­pit­als were allegedly pock­et­ing kick­backs for refer­ring patients to private labor­at­or­ies — some of which they secretly own.

In a let­ter dated Novem­ber 17, 2025, AHFoZ noti­fied Pari­renyatwa’s chief med­ical officer, Dr Tsitsi Magure, of what the asso­ci­ation described as a veri­fied scheme in which Omni­path used a vehicle as an unau­thor­ised mobile sample col­lec­tion site on hos­pital grounds.

The asso­ci­ation alleged that the setup was being used to facil­it­ate improper refer­ral incent­ives provided to health­care pro­fes­sion­als.

AHFoZ says its invest­ig­a­tion team vis­ited the hos­pital and phys­ic­ally con­firmed the pres­ence of an Omni­path-branded vehicle con­duct­ing the sus­pec­ted oper­a­tion.

The asso­ci­ation described the prac­tice as a clear viol­a­tion of med­ical eth­ics, stress­ing that induce­ments for patient refer­rals are both illegal and exploit­at­ive.

“The prac­tice of offer­ing or accept­ing induce­ments for patient refer­rals is a clear breach of med­ical eth­ics and is illegal. It does not only exploit patients but also brings the repu­ta­tion of your esteemed insti­tu­tion into dis­rep­ute,” wrote AHFoZ.

As a dir­ect response to the find­ings, AHFoZ announced that it had sus­pen­ded Omni­path’s regis­tra­tion indef­in­itely, pending res­ol­u­tion of the mat­ter.

The case has also been escal­ated to the Med­ical Labor­at­ory and Clin­ical Sci­ent­ists Coun­cil of Zim­b­abwe for reg­u­lat­ory scru­tiny.

The asso­ci­ation is now demand­ing clar­ity from Pari­renyatwa’s lead­er­ship regard­ing whether the labor­at­ory had been gran­ted any offi­cial author­ity to oper­ate within the facil­ity — par­tic­u­larly in such an uncon­ven­tional man­ner.

AHFoZ emphas­ised that its team remained avail­able to provide “first-hand details gathered from their inter­ac­tion at ‘the car’,” under­scor­ing the ser­i­ous­ness with which the fun­ders were treat­ing the alleg­a­tions.

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