5 illegal facilities shut down as 84-year-old ‘Surgeon’ arrested in Cross River

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By Akpan David, Calabar

The Cross River State taskforce on health has shut down five illegal health centres in the northern part of the state.

They have also apprehended one Mr Simon Okuta Agba, said to be 84 years old who parades himself as a surgeon, and actually subject unsuspecting patients to take surgeries.

This happened following a raid by the Taskforce on his clinic called Life First Clinic in Ukpah, Bekwarra LGA of the State.

Special Adviser to the Cross River State Governor on health, David Ushie who also is Chairman of the task force confirmed that they also arrested seven other persons from three other LGAs in Cross River North, namely Yala, Ogoja and Bekwarra.

Speaking about the arrest of the 84 year old fake Surgeon, Ushie said the fake clinic was raided following reports of suspicious deaths, maiming and even defrauding of members of the public of their monies.

He said unsuspecting members of the public re attracted to his clinic because of ridiculous surgery price regime which Simon and his team have been adopting to lure their victims.

Reeling out his report to Journalists, Ushie said, ” Following our investigation, we discovered one Simon Okuta Agba, said to be 84 years who has been running an unregistered facility under several names, currently called Life first Clinic.

“Mr. Simon has been running this facility by providing “cheap” costing for Surgical Operations and nearly every one who goes there with medical complaints always have to have another surgery.

‘On this tour, we met a total of 12 patients on admission, out of this, 11 of them have had surgeries carried out within 4 days from 31st of December, 2022.

“The only one who didn’t have surgery was the one who came a few hours before we arrived and he was already booked by Mr. Simon Okuta for surgery. So, if we did not go there, he was going to operate on this unsuspecting man.

“We met him conducting surgery on two patients, one a hernia and the other, appendix. These are the diagnosis that he assigns to nearly every patient even as the patients never really get the purported surgery since they adopt skin cuts with suturing while their patients are under anesthesia. The patients wake in the false believe that they had surgery.

“Mr. Simon employed other quacks who run sections in his hospital called laboratory who are not laboratory scientists.

“He has sections where they conduct ultra sound scan and the people are not radiographers, not even radiologists. “

The taskforce chairman also disclosed that they discovered nurses who were also not trained.

He said octogenarian fake Surgeon gives anaesthesia by himself, and sundry activities that take place in a very unhygienic facility.

“It is very sad to know that Mr. Simon transfuses blood, no body knows how he Cross matches blood, he has no pathologist or doctor that does the confirmation of the safety of this blood.
“, he said.

Dr Ushie further disclosed that thus far, investigations show that Mr. Simon “is not a doctor and has never gone to a medical school to train as a health personnel, he has no license, has no certificate, and the same is the case with all the staff that work with him. Life first Clinic Ukpah is also not registered with the Cross River State Ministry of Health as a health service provider”, he said.

Dr Ushie added that the culprit and others arrested along side with him have been arraigned in court by the Department of Public prosecution in Ogoja on Friday, 6th January 2023.