Farwaniya residency dept open all week long during amnesty
MoH workers arrested for tampering with expat blood tests
KUWAIT: The relations and security information department at the interior ministry said residency affairs departments in Kuwait’s six governorates are receiving residency law violators who can benefit from the ministerial amnesty decree either by correcting their status or leaving the country.
It said all departments will be open during official working hours, while the Farwaniya residency affairs department will also receive expat violators during afternoons and weekends (Fridays and Saturdays) from 2:00 pm till 7:00 pm. The department urged violators to take advantage of the amnesty and correct their status or leave.
Meanwhile, a group of people working at the health ministry’s foreign labor test center were arrested because they tampered with blood test samples, the ministry’s Assistant Undersecretary for Public health Dr Majda Al-Qattan said Friday. The health ministry, acting on an urgent request by the interior ministry on Wednesday, carried out tests on four Egyptians for hepatitis, tuberculosis and AIDS, Qattan told KUNA. The results came out on Thursday, showing two of the Egyptians were infected with hepatitis-b and two with hepatitis-C. The tuberculosis tests were negative, she added.
Qattan noted the interior ministry has been monitoring employees at the foreign labor test center for four months who were tampering with tests’ results by tampering blood samples while moving them between the room where the samples are taken and the laboratory. A security guard and a health ministry inspector were implicated, she said.
Qattan said the gang was led by an Egyptian woman who forged stamps used to clear tests. “This woman put the clear-to-go stamp on polluted samples,” she said, adding they identified a number of expatriates who passed the medical test through this gang. Qattan said the health ministry will also coordinate with the foreign ministry to prevent such forgery.