Woman arrested for stealing from hospital

CRIME

MUKONO - The Police in Mukono are holding a woman who allegedly stormed Mukono Church of Uganda Hospital and stole property belonging to the nurses and the patients in the private wing.

Patrick Onyango, the Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesman identified the suspect as Maria Flair alias Liz.

Onyango said that Maria is a habitual thief who always operates mostly in Kampala but she does not have a permanent home.

He said Maria is being held on two counts including theft and being in possession of narcotics.

"Upon her arrest, she injected herself with a certain drug which forced her to start vomiting and she claimed that she was sick. We took her blood samples to ascertain a number of things as we continue investigating her," he said.

Onyango said Maria has been arrested many times more especially in Kampala, taken to court and sentenced on several times but after serving her sentence, she starts afresh.

Many people have come up incriminating Maria saying they have cases against her on several Police stations including obtaining money by false pretense, theft, among others. She is also reported to have escaped from Police custody many times.

Godfrey Bulega, the hospital administrator said the incident happened on June 5 at around midday.

Bulega said Maria was in the company of another unidentified man who played the role of spying as she entered in the rooms to steal.

He identified the nurses whose property was stolen as; Sarah Racheal Nsubuga the in charge private ward and Patience Nalwadda.  He also said the patients and their attendants' property from different rooms were stolen on that same day.

He said after the nurses realized that their property had been stolen, they first thought the stealing had been done by the patients' attendants which prompted them to check on the CCTV cameras. 

"However, the CCTV cameras showed Maria doing the theft for some time in the broad daylight. They almost reached every section of the hospital where they would ask for a service which they were sure was not available," he elaborated.

Bulega said that Maria's arrest came after the footage in which she was stealing from the hospital was aired on Bukedde TV's Agataliiko Nfuufu and the audience helped them to identify her hence her arrest. 

Nsubuga said she lost a handbag which had things like; her smartphone, sh500,000, her credentials including the National Identification Card, ATM, a checkbook among others.

Nalwadda said her wallet which had sh200,000 was also stolen from her handbag. They said that they had put their handbags in the dressing room before going for lunch.

The hospital superintendent, Dr. Simon Peter Nsingo said they were forced to install the CCTV camera system after the rampant theft in the hospital.

After her arrest on Sunday, Maria pretended to be sick and she spent the night at Mukono Health Centre IV under a Police officer's surveillance.

She was later discharged and taken back to Mukono Police Division headquarters after health workers found out that she was just faking sickness.