Posted by By NGOZI UWUJARE, Ibadan on
Like a leopard which cannot change its spots, a fake female medical doctor arrested at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan last year returned to the same health institution to dispense quack cures to unsuspecting patients.
Like a leopard which cannot change its spots, a fake female medical doctor arrested at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan last year returned to the same health institution to dispense quack cures to unsuspecting patients.
Joyce Ucha Kalu, 40, who claimed to be a doctor of Pathology, began to prowl around the UCH wards in 2006, soliciting for patients with a promise that they would have better treatment in her private hospital at lesser fees.
Kalu's trick had worked until the monitoring unit of the Oyo State Police Command hunted her down at the Accident Emergency Unit of the foremost hospital last year, following a tip-off.
The ‘doctor', who hails from Abia State, claimed on interrogation to have attended the University of Benin and the Abia State University Teaching Hospital, from where she claimed to have been seconded to the UCH for supernumerary resident training programme.
Oyo State Police Public Relations Officer, Miss Bisi Okuwobi, told Daily Sun that investigation showed that Kalu was not a certified medical practitioner.
Police detectives also found Kalu not to have attended the two universities from where she claimed to have been trained.
She was further found to have forged a letter-head of the Department of Community Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, as well as transcripts of academic course work.
According to Okuwobi, police investigations also revealed that the suspect was not registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria to practise as a physician.
Consequently, Kalu was arraigned in the Ibadan Magistrate's Court 1 on a 10-count charge of quackery punishable under section 17(1) (a) of the Medical and Dental Practitioner Act 1990.
The court granted the ‘doctor' bail and with that, a licence to unleash more distress and anguish on unsuspecting patients.
After lying low for a while ‘Doctor' Kalu resurfaced at the UCH last month and continued to lure patients to her hospital for treatment at 'affordable fees.'
However, luck again ran out on her as the chief security adviser of the hospital arrested her at the staff clinic.
The Chief Security Adviser, Mr Aare Shittu speaks further about the suspect: 'I arrested her the second time at the staff clinic when she was soliciting for a patient who was brought in from Ogun State.
'I immediately handed her over to the police at Yemetu Police Station and she has again been charged to the same Ibadan Magistrate's Court, where she was granted bail last year.'
According to him, when Kalu was arrested last year, her house at Ayo Adesina Close, Old Ife Road, Ibadan was searched and various medical equipment as well as medicines were recovered.
Also seven patients on admission at the fake hospital and being treated by ‘Doctor' Kalu were moved to the UCH for proper care.
Shittu said the UCH was on the alert and would promptly arrest any fake physician such as Kalu. He also advised members of the public not to patronize quack doctors.