A 67-year-old farmer and his 31-year-old daughter who were arrested at Assin-Adadientem in the Central Region for practising medicine without authorisation, have been jailed five years each by a Cape Coast Circuit Court.
The convicts, Samuel Odartei, who has been practising for 30 years and later with Alberta Lamiokor, were charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit crime, namely practising medicine without lawful authorisation, employing or engaging a non-registered practitioner without lawful authority and wilfully and falsely using the title doctor without the qualification to practise medicine.
The convicts pleaded not guilty to the charges, but at the end of the trial, they were found guilty by the Court presided over by Mrs. Dorinda Smith Arthur.
Prosecuting, Chief Inspector Gilbert Ayongo, said Mr Bright Atsu Fuglo, an Administrator with Headquarters of the Investigative Unit of the Ghana Medical and Dental Council (GMDC), was the complainant whilst the convicts were residents of Assin-Adadienten in the Assin South District.
The Prosecutor said the Council gathered information about the convicts’ operation at Assin-Adadientem without authority and lodged a formal complaint to the police in Assin-Fosu.
He said on Wednesday, July 26, 2021, the complainant led the police to the facility, where they met Lamiokor in gloves busily dressing a patient’s wound as other patients waited for their turn.
Mr. Fuglo immediately feigned sickness and asked for medical attention at the facility of which Lamiokor obliged to assist and through interaction with her, Lamiokor said the facility was staffed by Odartei who was not immediately available but was a supporting dispensing staff at the facility.
Having gathered the facts on record, Mr. Fuglo alerted the accompanying plain cloth police officers who arrested Lamiokor and took some surgical blades, a daily attendance book and assorted prescriptive or over-the-counter medicines.
The Prosecutor said on hearing of the arrest of Lamiokor, Odartei reported himself to the police and was arrested, but during police interrogation, he contended that his operations at the facility were not fraught with any illegality and claimed he had operated for the past 30 years.
As defence, he tendered in a set of documents which were suggestive that he was once a committee member of a primary health volunteer in town.
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Again, Mr. Odartei, claimed his operations were known to the Assin South District Health Directorate, however, he could not produce any documents to buttress his claim and was accordingly charged.
Source: GNA
