By Françios Kwatani

Malawi Health Equity Network (MHEN) has called for medical regulatory bodies to be proactive in auditing and revisiting scientific and medical reports in order to verify the quality of the reports.

His remark follows a development by the board of Medical Council of Malawi which found pathologist Dr. Charles Dzamalala guilty of concluding that late Kottana Chidyaonga died of termic poison.

In a related development, the board has also found Dr. Ruth Chimutu for medical negligence after she mistakenly administered the lethal drug veruconium bromide that led to the death of Chidyaonga in January, 2020.

Dzamalala through his lawyer said he is dissatisfied with the judgement and further indicates to appeal at the Supreme Court of Malawi.

Reacting to the developments, MHEN) executive director George Jobe said the discoveries should give a warning to the council to be proactive and to take an example of how other regulatory bodies operate in the country in order to avoid such circumstances.

“Despite the Medical Council of Malawi monitoring health facilities, they need to be observing decisive strategies from other regulatory bodies such as Competition for Fair Trading and Commission-CFTC and Malawi Bureau of Standards-MBS when doing their work,” Jobe told YFM Online in an interview.

He added that when professionals and experts produce their reports the Medical council should do thorough auditing and revisit concluded reports to ensure that other people do not suffer from it.