[ 2017-01-30 ]

The Obengfo Hospital facility

Council closes down Obengfo Hospital
The Medical and Dental Council has closed down the
Obengfo Hospital, a body sculpting and plastic
surgery facility at Weija in Accra, for alleged
illegal operations.

A team of policemen from the SWAT Unit of the
Ghana Police Service joined the investigation team
from the Medical Council, led by the
Administrative Manager in charge of Investigations
Council, Mr Bright Atsu-Fuglo, to lock up all
doors and the main entrance of the facility.

The exercise was, however, delayed for hours as
the staff of the hospital protested the locking up
of the facility with the explanation that the
founder of the hospital was away, while some
patients were on admission.

Later, the team left one of the back doors of the
five-storey facility unlocked after they found
that one of the floors was the official residence
of the founder of the hospital, Dr Dominic Obeng
Andoh. The doors on that floor were also not
locked.

Arrest

In December 2016, a team from the Medical and
Dental Council and the Criminal Investigations
Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service
arrested Dr Obeng Andoh for his alleged illegal
operations but an attempt by the team to evacuate
patients at the centre was unsuccessful.

That was after the council had received complaints
from some persons who had patronised the services
of the hospital, which is also known as the
Advanced Body Sculpture Centre, and investigations
revealed that the operations of the centre were
putting the lives of its clients in danger.

Dr Andoh was subsequently granted police enquiry
bail.

In the middle of January this year, Dr Andoh tried
to seek a court injunction to stop the Medical and
Dental Council from locking up his premises, but
the application was thrown out by the court.

The court found that Dr Andoh’s lawyer was not a
certified legal practitioner at the time of filing
the application for restraining the council from
carrying out its plans to lock the facility up.

No licence

The Registrar of the MDC, Dr Eli Atikpui, told the
Daily Graphic that Dr Andoh was not licensed in
Ghana to operate a body sculpting and plastic
surgery facility.

He said Dr Andoh was licensed in 2000 to offer
consultation services but has since 2012 failed to
renew his licence to operate a hospital, in line
with the Health Professional Regulatory Bodies
Act, 2013 (Act 857).

Dr Andoh, however, insisted that he had made a
number of attempts to renew his licence but the
Medical and Dental Council had refused to take his
registration fee of GH¢250.

Dr Atikpui said that was untrue and explained that
the fee for the renewal of the licence was not
GH¢250, as claimed by Dr Andoh.

“As an administrative body, we exist to guide
professionals in the medical sector and to protect
the public. Dr Andoh was not licensed to conduct
plastic surgery at the facility. We had to close
down the facility to safeguard public health and
public safety,” he said.

The law

Dr Atikpui said the MDC had received numerous
complaints from the Reconstructive Plastic Surgery
and Burns Centre at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital
of patients who reported with complications from
surgical procedures they had undergone at the
Obengfo Hospital.

In 2013, Dr Atikpui said the council received a
report of a man who died after Dr Andoh had
performed a medical procedure on him.

“We have exercised our mandate in accordance
with the law. The law requires us to close down
the facility and to serve a notice to Dr Andoh
personally and we did that about two weeks ago
through our lawyer. We are working in
collaboration with the CID to ensure we get to the
finality of the case,” he said.

Source - graphic.com.gh

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