March 02, (THEWILL) – Each occupation has its fair proportion of quacks. However quacks can intrude and thrive in any occupation when it fails to keep up requirements and apply sanctions as a type of examine on members’ excesses and preserve invaders away. The story of quackery within the medical occupation in Nigeria is legion; many have been caught performing surgical procedure, which regularly ends in the dying of the affected person.
Certainly, issues received so dangerous just a few years in the past, that the Nigerian Medical Affiliation, NMA, launched a physician stamp which, it stated, shall be necessary on all medical paperwork issued by any doctor that’s registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
The stamp is an anti-quackery measure. The concept is that if a physician’s stamp is on any report, the stamp has the file variety of that physician, the identify of that physician, the establishment and the yr they graduated from medical college. As well as, every medical establishment, notably non-public establishments, are supposed to have a brand of such a stamp by their pattern in order that it will probably assist to determine a professional physician.
That stamp was reportedly made necessary for registered medical doctors from thirty first march, 2018.
Any physician who fails to adjust to the directive shall be handled as a quack. How far this coverage has been applied is questionable.
It is because someday in February 2025, a miserable story broke in regards to the dying of a mom and her child after medical doctors and nurses carried out surgical procedure on her whereas watching YouTube Movies to carry out the operation. In line with the affected person’s husband, Onyedikachi Eze, a constructing contractor, the hospital had referred to as two male medical doctors and three feminine nurses to help with the operation.
He stated, “They had been employed by Dr Lebechi. Three of her nurses additionally assisted, bringing the overall to 5 folks concerned within the surgical procedure. Dr Lebechi was not within the theatre in the course of the operation. She left twice to purchase gasoline for the generator. The nurses knew me and my spouse properly. We weren’t strangers on the hospital. It was the nurses who had been watching YouTube movies on tips on how to carry out the C-section.”
In desperation Mr Eze fulfilled the calls for made by the proprietor of the hospital, Dr Lebechi Chijioke, together with shopping for gasoline for the hospital’s energy generator, repeatedly going to purchase blood at solely authorised locations and whereas, returning to the hospital from one of many journeys to purchase blood, heard, “Dr Lebechi casually talked about that surgical procedure was not her space of specialisation.” In truth, the conduct of the medical doctors and nurses clearly reveals they’re unqualified as Eze famous and Dr Chijioke intimated about herself to Eze. They’re clearly within the unsuitable occupation. It’s for the cash.
Expectedly, mom and child died. Oddly, it was after tragedy struck that Mr Eze began listening to comparable tales of doom shared by different sufferers of the hospital. That is unpardonable and it shouldn’t be allowed to face. All medical doctors swear an oath to maintain life; to not intentionally destroy it. Watching YouTube movies to carry out an operation is akin to buying and selling the lifetime of a affected person for cash.
Nevertheless, an NGO needed to take up the case, resulting in the arrest of Dr Chijioke and her husband. Even so, for the hospital to have lasted that lengthy for folks to share comparable experiences about its operations much like Mr Eze’s raises the query of not solely quackery but additionally the laxity and oversight of the related authorities.
We name on the police to probe this matter diligently and prosecute these discovered responsible. We urge the NMA to see this avoidable tragedy as a reawakening to the problem of quackery in its ranks and proceed to determine culprits and weed them out in probably the most indiscreet method.
On its half, the Imo State authorities should rise as much as the event and supply all types of help to make sure that this incident by no means happens in its area once more.
