The government of Oyo State has vowed to close any private medical establishment found to be using underqualified staff going forward.
The announcement was made by the state’s health commissioner, Dr. Oluwaserimi Ajetunmobi, during a separate meeting in the ministry’s conference room with representatives from the Oyo State branch of the Clinics and Maternity Proprietors and Proprietress Association of Nigeria (CAMPPAN) and other private healthcare industry stakeholders.
According to Ajetunmobi, the necessity to call the appropriate bodies into order for correct regulations among their members stems from the fact that valuable lives are continuously lost to quackery techniques.
The commissioner reaffirmed that hospitals with underqualified staff pose a threat to society and promised to close any private hospitals in the state that do not have qualified staff.
According to Ajetunmobi, hospital owners who are not in the medical field are required to have licensed physicians on staff who possess the most recent version of their annual practicing license, and other employees must also have their registrations updated.
The government will not spare such hospitals from its fury, she warned, because anyone operating with an expired license is considered a quack. “We need to do this in the interest of our people,” she stated.
The commissioner also advised private hospital operators to adhere to their operational boundaries, noting that going beyond them is a type of quackery practice that the government highly disapproves of.
“Clinics are not meant for admission of patients but for observation and onward referrals, they should not do the work of hospitals,” she continued.
Dr. Akintunde Ayinde, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health, reaffirmed in his remarks that the government places a high priority on the standard of healthcare that the public receives, and that those who open hospitals without the necessary training will be subject to the proper sanctions.
In order to lessen quackery and malpractice in the state, Akintunde consequently encouraged pertinent organizations to collaborate with the government in order to identify the bad actors among them.
The associations’ representatives pledged in their respective statements to work with the administration to accomplish their objectives of combating quackery in the state.
Directors from the Ministry attended the meeting, under the direction of Dr. Adekunle Aremu, the Director of Secondary Health Care and Training and the Chairman of the Oyo State Anti-Quackery Committee.