The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, MDCN, on Friday shut down the main campus of the Luminar International Centre for Health and Alternative Medicine, located at Mgbowo, in Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State.
The Council, which carried out the exercise in collaboration with the Enugu State ministry of health, also closed down the institution’s outreach centre in Agbani Road, Enugu.
Addressing journalists after the exercise, the head of the MDCN’s enforcement team, Dr. Okwuokenye Henry said the health institutions were closed down for allegedly operating without operating licence from regulating authorities.
He said it was unfortunate that a school should be opened where medical personnel were trained without any form of regulation from any authority, wondering what would be the quality of the graduates from the institution.
He expressed shock over the number of patients at the Awgu main campus of the institution, stressing that “it is even more worrisome that there is nobody to attend to these patients”.
“We have come and we have seen that they train students here; nobody was given accreditation to run this school; this institution is illegal and fake; so it stands closed. You can see they just told us that the institution belongs to one Professor Okoro Akpan, but I can tell you authoritatively that the professor himself has no practice licence, let alone training others. He is not registered here in Nigeria, yet he is registering others”.
The MDCN insisted that until the authorities of the institution complies with practice directive as provided in cap M8 of the Laws of Medical and Dental Act, the school shall remain shut.
Also speaking, the permanent secretary of the Enugu State Ministry of health, Dr. Moses Otiji said government would not spare people who toy with health of other Nigerians.
The perm sec, who stood in for the state commissioner for health during the exercise said: “we have about nine patients who are not being attended to by anybody, no doctor, no nurse, not even a pharmacist.
“It is highly regrettable the level of rot in the society; also look at young men and women who are here wasting their prime age on such an illegal environment”.
Meanwhile, a mild drama played out at the Mgbowo campus as lawyer who claimed to be counsel to the institution stormed the school and argued that the school should not be closed as there was still a pending court case over the matter.
“It is true that the court has struck out the matter we filed against the council, but between now and the next three months, we still have our right appeal”, he told the medical team.
Effort made to obtain reasonable comments from the students of the institution failed as the lawyer stopped them from giving out vital information.
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