The police have arrested a suspected quack
doctor, Victor Akpan, in the Gwarinpa area of Abuja.
PUNCH Metro learnt that Akpan, who had
been running a private hospital for 10 years, allegedly operated with forged
and stolen certificates.
His arrest came exactly one year after the arrest
of a senior medical officer with the Federal Ministry of Health, Martins Ugwu,
by the police for practising as a medical doctor with stolen certificates for
over nine years.
PUNCH Metro learnt on Tuesday that
Akpan’s arrest was sequel to investigations by the Medical and Dental Council
of Nigeria.
It was gathered that the suspect was the owner of
Luna Maternity and Surgery Hospital, an outfit he opened in 2006 using a forged
licence – four years after the MDCN refused to grant him licence to
practice as a homeopath.
The Head of the Inspectorate Division of MDCN, Dr
Henry Okwuokenye, who had been investigating Akpan, said the regulatory agency
did not grant him a homeopathic practice licence “because the school he claimed
to have graduated from in Enugu State was not approved to train students in
alternative medicine.”
He said an investigation by the MDCN showed that
Akpan presented forged documents to unsuspecting officials of the Private Health
Establishment and Monitoring Committee, an organisation, which regulates
private health outfits in Abuja, to get Luna registered.
“Akpan had big name patients as far back as 2007
and had facilitated the expansion of his clinic. He hired five workers, who
assisted him in an apartment where he performed caesarean sections, removed
fibroids and delivered pregnant women of babies,” Okwuokenye said.
It was learnt that the suspect, who was already
with the police, could be paraded this week.
PUNCH Metro gathered that Akpan told
police investigators that in 2002, he allegedly paid N15, 000 to one Nwagbara,
a worker with a teaching hospital in Enugu State, to get a forged MDCN practice
certificate.
The certificate, sighted by our correspondent,
was issued to one Dr. Awani, a 1995 Medicine and Surgery graduate of the
University of Benin.
Among other documents allegedly forged by Akpan,
one indicated he did his internship at Calvary International Hospital in Enugu
in 1996 and had his National Youth Service Corps with the Nigerian Prisons
Service in 1997.
He also claimed to have attended a course
organised by the West African College of Surgeons in 2001 and a postgraduate
course on Scientific Basis of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 2002.
The FCT Police Public Relations Officer, Anjuguri
Manzah, did not pick calls made to his phone.
He also had yet to reply to a text message on the
incident
..punch
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