To sanitise the health sector, the Cross River State government has begun a crackdown on fake medical practitioners and illegal health facilities.
The exercise is being carried out by Cross River State Health Taskforce, which has arrested a fake surgeon and shutdown some illegal facilities.
The latest round of enforcement embarked upon by the state Ministry of Health has led to the arrest of an 84-year-old fake surgeon identified as Simon Okuta Agba.
Agba was arrested on Tuesday 3rd Jan, 2023, after officials of the agency raided Life First Clinic (owned by Agba) in Ukpah Community, Bekwarra local government area of Cross River State.
Speaking on the issue, in Calabar yesterday, the governor’s special adviser on health and chairman of the State Task Force, Dr David Ishie, stated that besides Mr Okuta, the current operations closed down five medical facilities with the arrest of seven persons within Yala, Ogoja and Bekwarra LGA of Cross River State.
The task force chairman while commenting on the arrest made so far stated that in Yala, one Rosemary Irima an operator of Divine Favour Clinic and Maternity had her facility sealed and practice items confiscated by the Taskforce.
He stressed that in Abakpa and Igoli communities, Ogoja LGA of the Cross River State three persons were arrested for hawking Islamic herbal products which the marketer claimed cures all manner of diseases despite the fact that the medication lacked NAFDAC safety certifications nor credible manufacturer’s information.
He enumerated the individuals arrested for the offence to include Michael Chia, Michael Ani and one Mr Rabiu, whose shop had been sealed by the taskforce along Audi Street and all charged to court.
Those arrested are among those arraigned in Ogoja LGA of Cross River State on January 5, 2023 in its second batch of court charges in three months.
The first batch was the arraignment of six quacks in October 2022 comprising of those arrested from Alladim community in Ogoja in September 2022.
While emphasising on the raid, the taskforce chairman stated that the fake clinic was raided following reports of suspicious deaths, maiming and even defrauding of members of the public of their monies through ridiculous surgery price regime which Simon and his team have been adopting to lure their victims.
The taskforce chairman said, “On our investigation, we discovered one Simon Okuta Agba, an elderly man said to be 84 years who has been running this unregistered facility under several names, currently called Life first Clinic.
“Mr. Simon has been running this facility by providing cheap costing for surgical operations and nearly every one who goes there with medical complaints always have to have surgery.
“On this tour, we met a total of 12 patients on admission, out of this, 11 of them have had surgeries carried out within 4 days from 31st of December, 2022.
“The only one who didn’t have surgery was the one who came a few hours before we arrived and he was already booked by Mr. Simon Okuta for surgery. So, if we did not go there, he was going to operate on this man after the surgery which he was handling before we arrived his premises.
“We met him conducting surgery on two patients, one a hernia and the other, appendix. These are the diagnosis that he assigns to nearly every patient even as the patients never really get the purported surgery since they adopt skin cuts with suturing while their patients are under anesthesia. The patients wake in the false believe that they had surgery.
“Mr. Simon employed other quacks who run sections in his hospital called laboratory who are not laboratory scientists. He has sections where they conduct ultra sound scan and the people are not radiographers, not even radiologists.
“He has nurses who are not trained, he gives anaesthesia by himself, and sundry activities that all take place in a very unhygienic facility.”
