Dr Celestine Ugwuoke, the new Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in Enugu State, has pledged to combat medical quackery in the state.

Ugwuoke made the pledge in his inaugural speech on Monday, after he emerged the winner of a keenly contested election.

He said that medical quacks had caused a lot of damage to the profession and death of several unsuspecting residents.

“It seems there has been no concerted efforts to check this negative development,” Ugwuoke said.

According to him, NMA will partner with the government through the state House of Assembly, the executive, security agencies and other medical professional bodies to see that we fight medical quackery in the state.

“Medical quackery is a silent but devastating killer of a lot of people.

“It is still killing because people doing it had remained unrepentant after causing families to lose their loved ones and patients’ medical condition getting complicated.
“I have witnessed a lot of unqualified persons claiming what they are not in health facilities in the state.

“Even some medical professionals take up tasks or medical operations, like surgery, which is outside their training. “These are supposed to be reserved for medical consultants in various specialised fields,” Ugwuoke said.

He promised that the body might be compelled to sponsor a bill in the state assembly, prescribing stiffer penalty against quacks, who parade themselves as medical personnel in the state.

Ugwuoke, popularly called “Dr Nice Man”, said that after pushing to get the bill passed, NMA would press for the establishment of an agency saddled with the responsibility of fighting medical quacks.

“The agency will be made of members from various medical professional backgrounds to make it all compassing.

“It will be its duty to get rid of all forms of medical quackery and other professional malpractices.

“Individual doctors, the NMA and concerned citizens can do little without effective law, government’s and security agencies’ backing to fight these quacks to a standstill.

“I know the bitter experience some NMA members got trying to fight these impostors on their own and within two weeks in custody, the quacks find their way back to their nefarious activities,” Ugwuoke said.

He said that fighting quackery would help to sanitise the system.

He further said that hospitals and health facilities would get duly licensed and also pay licence renewal fees.

Dr Esther Ekwe emerged unopposed as Deputy Chairman, Dr Sunday Okafor (Secretary) and Dr Lilian Ezugwu (Assistant Secretary).

Others were Dr Nelson Agbo (Treasurer), Dr Patrick Nwachukwu (Financial Secretary), Dr Ijeoma Charles-Ugwuagbo (Publicity Secretary) and Dr Nnamdi Ezugworie (Social Secretary).
The new executive would run the affairs of the association in the state for two years.