Health education graduate performs surgery in Kwara clinic

Dr.Olaitan

The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria has raided a hospital in Ilorin, Kwara State, identified as Springway Hospital.

Many documents and a medical certificate believed to have been stolen from their owners were found during the raid on Saturday.

The Head of Inspectorate, MDCN, Dr. Okwuokenye Henry, who was in Ilorin on the instruction of the council’s registrar, Dr. Abdulmumini Ibrahim, said the council got a report that a doctorate degree holder in Human Kinetics and Health Education, Dr. Olaitan Lanre, established and operated the facility in Oko Erin area of the state.

He added that Lanre had allegedly been working as a doctor, carrying out surgery and fertility operations on patients in the clinic which operates 24-hour services.

 According to him, Lanre also claimed to be a lecturer at the University of Ilorin.

The head of the MDCN inspectorate stated that the council had already informed UNILORIN about the illegal activities of the fake doctor who claimed to be a lecturer at the varsity.

Henry ordered the closure of the facility pending the resolution of the matter. He also urged the police to arrest Lanre.

He added that the raid was to prevent the fake doctor from endangering the lives of unsuspecting patients.

He stated that the two doctors indicted by the recovered documents at the hospital had been summoned to appear before the MDCN.

Henry said, “We received a petition in my office in Abuja that somebody who had a Ph.D in Human Kinetics and also a lecturer with University of Ilorin named Dr. Olaitan Lanre opened a hospital in Oko Erin in Kwara State and has been working as a doctor carrying out surgery on people and fertility operations.

“During the raid, we discovered that the letter for the registration of the hospital was written by the fake doctor who used the name of one Dr. Jimoh A.A. as the overseer of the hospital and another Dr. Adeyemi as the medical director in charge of the hospital.

“During investigations, both doctors denied knowing Lanre who opened the hospital. Dr. Adeyemi, who is said to be the medical director of the hospital and whose certificate was also used to register the hospital, does not work there. Lanre’s operations at the hospital are fraudulent.

“When we got to the place with policemen, we met the place under lock and key which shows that he had been informed of our coming but some employees of the hospital were hovering around the place. Two were arrested, and policemen are already interrogating them.”

The Director, Medical Services and Training, Kwara State Ministry of Health, Dr. Subair Erubu, said the fake doctor used the name of some doctors to obtain his licence to register the hospital.

“The hospital didn’t register as a hospital but as a clinic and maternity home to carry out minor treatments on people. But we are surprised that the clinic has gone beyond what is expected of it by carrying out surgery for cases that do not even require such,” Erubu said.

 

By Success Nwogu,The Punch

 

****Dr. Olaitan has also run Kingsway IVF clinic in the past.

 

 

 

 

LUTH Reopens IVF Clinic

From left: Former Chief Medical Director (CMD) LUTH, Prof Akin Osibogun, Prof Ashiru, Prof Bode, Prof Giwa-Osagie and Provost, College of Medicine, University of Lagos (CMUL) Prof Folashade Ogunsola at the event.

The Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi Araba, has revived its Assisted Reproductive Clinic. It folded up in the 90s due to lack of funding. Now known as LUTH Assisted Fertility Clinic (AFC), the duo of Professors Osato Giwa-Osagie and Oladapo Ashiru, pioneered the clinic that produced the first test tube baby in Nigeria in March 1986. They both were at  the event, glowing with pride.

Going down memory lane, Prof Giwa-Osagie said the clinic through its IVF programme treated 20 patients between 1984 and 1994, “but we could not sustain it because of lack of institutional and government support.

Thereafter, the IVF services in Nigeria were largely made available by the private hospital. LUTH IVF clinic, according to him, “was the first in West, East and Central Africa.  Only Egypt and South Africa were the two African countries that had it before Nigeria in IVF history.”

Prof Giwa-Osagie said the full commencement of IVF services at LUTH had to wait for the ideal environment to be provided by the management. The perfect environment include sterile atmosphere for the laboratory and theatre; tiling of the laboratory and theatre; design of fee structure; acquisition of modern equipment; dedicated workforce and recruitment of patients.

The hospital, he said, is setting a goal of producing not less than 200 babies through IVF per annum.  “I am proud that this is coming to be as there is no short cut in life. Good legacies are built through perseverance, consistency and determination. The reopening of this clinic put history in the right perspective.

“This marks a return of IVF where it started in West Africa. We are set to charge lesser price than what obtains in the private sector. There are now about 45 IVF centres in the country,” he said.

Prof Ashiru was beside himself with joy and said international standard should be maintained in the clinic and it “includes training of embryologists, who will be certified and willing to train other embryologists.  Success of IVF is in the laboratory. “World Health Organisation (WHO) standard should be brought back here, including documentation,” he said.

LUTH’s Chief Medical Director (CMD), Prof Chris Bode, said the clinic will make IVF service affordable, accessible and available, “As this is a foremost institution of excellence and we have the experts here that get things done,” he said.

FREE IVF SCREENING & TREATMENT

Nigeria :Why Success Rate of In-Vitro Fertilisation Can't Be Determined in Nigeria - Expert

Dr. Ajayi

A consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist, Dr Abayomi Ajayi, has said it is difficult to determine the success rate of In-Vitro Fertilisation, IVF, in the country due to lack of monitoring agencies.

Speaking in Asaba during the Physicians' Roundtable with the theme 'Personalised IVF: New Techniques to Improve Success Rate', Ajayi decried the lack of monitoring agencies and dearth of records to ascertain the success rate of breakthroughs in reproductive health across the country.

He said: "We can't talk about success rate in Nigeria because there are no monitoring agencies. You can talk about success rate in your own clinic that is what you know about your clinic. For us, our success rate is equal to what you find in advanced parts of the world."

While saying that the success rate can only determined at the individual clinics where IVF services are rendered, Ajayi who is the Managing Director of Nordica Fertility Centre, debunked the claim in some quarters that IVF services were beyond the reach of citizens at the lower rung of the economic ladder.

"When people say that IVF is expensive, I know that it is not cheap but I don't know if it is expensive. People sometimes have the idea that IVF is up to N5 million above. It is not, at least I know in my own clinic. What I say most of the time is that, if you can buy a fairly used car, you can get IVF. So, you have to find out how much it is in the clinic you are going to and know how to access it. It is not cheap but it is not as expensive as people think.

"IVF involves the process of bringing the egg and the sperm together outside the body, and then the embryo that is formed is flushed back into the woman with the hope that it becomes a baby. It is used for people who want to have children either because they are having problem bearing children or because they want to avoid a particular genetic disorder or they are looking for a particular sex."

 

By Festus Ahon

Source: vanguardnews