BY: Vitalis Ugoh, Calabar
Seven suspected persons operating in a remote village in Ogoja, Cross River State, as medical doctors are now in police custody over series of “unprofessional surgeries” on their victims.
Also, 13 medical facilities have been shut down across the state where they engage in illegal practices.
This was disclosed to media men in Calabar yesterday by the Special Adviser to the governor on Health and Chairman of Task Force On Quackery and related violations in the health care delivery system, Dr David Ushie.
The culprit are now been interrogated as investigations are on over their illegal surgeries on their victims.
Their arrests was as a result of information and immediately “my team swung into action resulting to what we are breifing you today, he noted”.
During our investigations, we discovered “ten patients on admission, nine of them had 11 surgeries,out of the nine, three had four surgeries for “hernia” while seven had surgeries for”appendectomies”.
It was also discovered that “at least five of the 11 surgeries were clearly recognized as superficial skin cuts giving patients the false sense that they had surgeries “.
They were only identified as Mr. Philips Terzngwe Beeve, Sunny, Dr. Augustine Adugba, Mrs. Janet A. Bisong, Mrs. Elizabeth Bullem.
The matter has been officially reported to the DPO of Ogoja Area Command, Supol Horsfall, who confirmed the incidence.
Answering reporter’s questions, Dr. Ushie, said that his team is ready to flush out quacks in the medical profession as well as to close down health facilities where they operate.
He lauded the foresight of the state governor, His Excellency, Sen. Ben Ayade for constituting the task force on healthcare regulations in the state.
Ushie vowed to get rid of quacks and their illegal practices within the state.
He appealed to members of the public to be rest assured that before December all illegal health facilities as well as those traditional medicine vendors shall be rid off our streets.
“We can only achieve this through your cooperation and support, feeding the task force with useful information that could help us, he added”.
He appealed to the media to assist in publicising the activities of quacks in our health facilities so as to assist the task force senitise the healthcare system in the state.
