Medical Council Prosecutes 23 Quack Medical Proffessionals in Nigeria

 

        The Registrar, Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, Dr Abdulmumini Ibrahim, said on Friday that the council had successfully prosecuted 23 quacks in the medical profession in Nigeria.
Ibrahim told the News Agency of Nigeria that the council was poised to sanitise the profession to restore standards.
He added that activities of quacks would no longer be tolerated.
“Part of our achievements last year was to prosecute quacks; I made mention of membership of the council that is cut across the states of the federation.
“What we have in the states are state monitoring committees; these state monitoring committees are under the auspices of the director of medical services in the state ministry of health


“They do the monitoring of functions of the council in their states, when they identify the quacks and the suspected doctors or quacks, they report them.
“We have a department called the inspectorate and monitoring, this department will investigate and report that quack to the law enforcement agencies.
“Last year alone, we had about 23 cases before the courts and we are following these cases in various parts of the country,” he said.
He said investigation of complaints of some medical doctors from the public was on going, adding that efforts were on to end the negative trend.
Ibrahim said the act establishing the council mandated it to discipline erring professionals, who fall short of standards.
He said there were laid down rules and standards in accreditation and registration of medical training institutions, stressing the need for all practising members to renew their license annually.
He said, “any training institution that falls short of standards, we caution that institutions and if need be, we suspend its accreditation.
“Practising members are expected to renew their license annually, while new members who have just graduated from our training institutions are provisionally registered.
“We also have guidelines; we also have our members who are expatriates that come into this country.
“We also have a standard that we have put for them to register in this country; they must attain those guidelines; if they are short of those guidelines, we don’t register them.”
The registrar warned that any medical or dental practitioner found engaged in or encouraging touting would be subject to proceedings before the Panel and Disciplinary Tribunal.
Ibrahim called on parents and prospective candidates to always find out about the accreditation status of the institutions they or their wards were applying to.