allAfrica.com: Nigeria: Alarming Quackery in the Medical Profession (Page 1 of 1)

There is something more important that should bother officials of the ministries of health at all levels in the country. This is the alarming rising trend in quackery in the profession in which innocent souls have been lost and maimed to the activities of unbaked and quarter baked persons in the system. They should not only be interested in their own welfare. I wonder why they have not seen the imperative of declaring a strike to protest the level of illegal practices in the profession, or the hijacking of the practice by quacks, or even declaring a state of emergency as a way of arresting the negative trend, but will not hesitate to go on a national action to protect their stomachs. There is no profession in the country today that is dominated so much by quacks like the medical and pharmaceutical sectors. Go to the cities, villages, motor parks and streets and see all sorts of people selling drugs without prescription, while some do abortions. The health ministries continue to pay lip service by addressing the press and marking days of the Nigerian child, mothers, fathers, etc, from the comfort of their offices without doing anything to curb the situation, until the next season comes again. I guess most of them are also quacks in that ministry. May be this is because it is an easy occupation that can be practised without much challenges or that it does not require much expertise to do. I'm not saying there are no quacks in other professions, but it is more visible and preponderant in medicine, which ironically, centres around the preservation and protection of human life. It is more reckless in the medical trade which prides itself as the life saver of a nation. No apology to anyone. Over the years, the profession has witnessed dramatic scandals in the practise of medicine where all sorts of persons engage in abortions, surgeries, drug administrations and etc. The truth is that, if not for the late arrival of NAFDAC, only God knows how many people alive today would have since been in the world beyond even before their time.

Just few days ago, I saw one of our female reporter, BLESSING DAVID doing a story on a quack doctor who heartlessly and mercilessly chopped off the two hands of a beautiful lady at once, under the guise of saving her from death following injuries she sustained from a motorcycle accident. The story goes thus," The experience of Saratu Yusuf, a Gbagi indigene from the Kuje area council of Abuja, has left her in a state of psychological trauma. Saratu who got her hands amputated by a quack doctor, after she sustained a minor injury from an accident while on a motorcycle with her brother on their way back from the stream, is still in a state of shock.

According to her, she woke up from a deep sleep after an injection was administered on her by the doctor and found out that her two hands had been amputated with no genuine reasons by the doctor".

After going through her story, I began to shed tears. I was touched by the two pictures I saw, one before the incident which showed the two hands of the young lady that had no sign of ailment, and the second which showed the ugly face of her handlessness, occasioned by the ungodly, wicked, satanistic and luciferic intent of a fellow human being, old enough to be her father.I concluded in my heart that the so-called doctor is not a trained medical personel and obviously,he must have set up his illegal clinic to lay ambush for innocent people like Saratu.He equally cannot escape accusations of a ritual intent by doing what he did?How can a sane medical personel take a major decision on a patient without the consent of the person who brought her? Why did he refuse to commence treatment by insisting the elder brother of the girl pay N1,000?Why did he not wait for the boy to return before taking his action after refusing to start treatment? Why can't he stop the boy from going home in the first place if at all, he is concerned about the health of the girl? For the doctor, it was business as usual, but nemesis has caught up with him. He must tell the law how many Saratus he has amputated their hands and the abortions he may have committed.

In the words of Saratu who was visited by our correspondent," I am 13 years old and a student of Science Primary School, Kuje. I am in primary 5. I was returning from somewhere with my brother on a motorcycle, when a tipper hit us. I sustained a minor injury and was rushed to a nearby clinic for first aid treatment because I was bleeding. It would have been stopped probably by attending to us, but the doctor demanded that we deposit the sum of N1,000 before he could treat me. My brother assured him of bringing the money while he rushed home to inform my parents and get the money. Unknown to me, the doctor administered an injection which I thought was to stop the bleeding, but which rather made me sleep off. When I woke up, I discovered my two hands have been amputated. When I asked why, the doctor said he had to do it so that I don't die. By then my brother had returned with my parents who could not bear the ugly incident. They took the matter to a police station. Later, the doctor showed me my hands which were later buried, Saratu narrated". What a brilliant girl whose education was abruptly halted by someone obviously jealous of her. To make matters worse, a certain Police Divisional Officer who got the report decided to treat it with levity. Instead of taking the matter personally to the highest level to be handled by expert crime investigators at the force CID, he showed no interest, but claimed to be always on duty.

What duty is, it if he cannot go out to save or protect the life in question? Hear him, "The incident happened exactly on April 2nd when I was barely two months into the office. Officers in charge of traffic matters informed me and I instructed that they handle the matter. Little did I know that the accident resulted into the doctor amputating the girl's hands because I never saw them, neither did I go to the scene of the incident as I was always on duty. The father of the girl came to complain to me and I sent for the doctor and requested that both parties go home and resolve the issue, since the deed had already been done. Until now, I don't know the girl's house or what she looks like. When I also asked why the doctor amputated the girl's hands, he said he did that because she was bleeding profusely and he had to save her life."

To be continued

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories