It has not been a good time for the family of Dr. Anu of Med-Contour and that of the deceased queen Nneka Onwuzuligbo.
This has led to series of media and social media rage, with various questions, wagging in the tongues of the people, however, Lanre Opanuga has this to say about the whole story.
He wrote: While Medicine was in the past described as an ancient, noble and learned profession and rated highly only behind the clergy, it does appear that the physicians of the latter days especially in Nigeria have lost the huge social responsibility associated with entrusting the lives of the citizens in their hands.
Also, while not all deaths emanating from the care of a patient cannot of a necessity be attributed directly to a physician’s negligence to which the Medical Council has a prerogative to adjudicate upon; same cannot be said of a death which emanated from care resulting from a physician unlicensed to provide care without the supervision of a senior doctor.
Such is the case of Dr. Anu Adepoju the owner of Med-Contour Hospital and Laser Center who carried out a specialist surgical procedure of liposuction and fat transfer on beauty queen Nneka while undergoing her internship as a Pre-registration House Officer at the General Hospital, Lagos in Dec 2018.
The patient subsequently developed complications which finally led to her death at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital in 2019 after spending some weeks in the Intensive Care of the Hospital.
Her death sparked off a number of social media protests demanding for justice while a number of other clients who had been living with complications of procedures carried out by Dr. Anu Adepoju have surfaced in the social media. Amidst all these complaints, the victims of Dr. Anu’s practice had approached a number of government regulatory agencies- The Medical & Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), the Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) and the Federal Competition & Consumer Protection Council (FCCPC).
While the HEFAMAA in 2019 was forced to seal of the facility in 2019, Dr. Anu in defiance of the agency opened in another location in the same vicinity under the name Med-Contour Aesthetics and continued her illegal operations.
The final step taken however was the closure of the new facility by the FCCPC following Dr. Anu’s failure to honour an invitation to appear before the FCCPC following public complaints.
In a swift response, Dr. Anu approached the leadership of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) Lagos branch to complain about FCCPC’s illegality for sealing her practice, the NMA leaders in response and without appropriate due diligence vilified the FCCPC for venturing into a territory in the preserve of the MDCN.
This however did not go down well with prominent members of the State Executive Council of the NMA who argued that the Association also has a responsibility towards the citizens in ensuring patients’ safety and social justice.
Following detailed investigations into how Dr. Anu who at the time of registration of the Med-Contour Hospital was a Pre-Registration House Officer and thus unqualified to register a hospital became a practicing cosmetic surgeon; a document which emanated from the HEFAMAA showed that a senior doctor whose name was given as Dr. Adenekan Adetunji Olusesan, a doctor of 14 years standing in 2018 and a Lecturer at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos and Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi –Araba did register the facility as the Chief Operating Officer but never performed the role he claimed in the registration document.
it is also instructive to know that Dr. Adenekan was a lecturer to Dr. Anu who graduated from UNILAG barely one year before then having spent an extra 2 years in the medical school (her classmates had graduated in 2014/2015 session) who would be required to go for the mandatory youth service after the completion of the internship and in addition will require at least 5 years post-graduation to be eligible to open a private medical facility as a doctor.
The same Dr. Adenekan was the First Vice-Chairman of the Lagos branch of the Nigerian Medical Association at the time he committed this act against the people of Lagos State, he remained the Vice-Chairman when Dr. Anu reported FCCPC to the NMA and shamelessly kept the details of Anu’s practice away from the association leading to a misrepresentation of the Association.
Today the body of a young promising Nigerian lady lay cold in the grave as a result of the grave act of indiscretion exhibited by a Nigerian doctor, lecturer and consultant surgeon who unleashed into the society an unqualified personnel, a former student of his, variously known to many lecturers as a ‘less than average’ student in skills and academic knowledge to practice as a specialist cosmetic surgeon while she was yet qualified to practice as a general practitioner.
What is, however, more worrisome is that the establishments with whom Dr. Adenekan work –LUTH which was also disparaged by Dr. Anu as lacking in the personnel with experience in the management of patients who developed complications from cosmetic surgeries and the College of Medicine have not deemed it necessary to query Dr. Adenekan to explain his role in this whole saga yet have filed a petition to the MDCN.
In fact top officials of LUTH Management are currently advising Dr. Adenekan on steps to take in order to make HEFAMAA expunge his name from the registration documents of Dr. Anu’s hospital in other to escape scrutiny.
Finally, the medical community in NMA Lagos is polarized into groups as the NMA Lagos Chairman –Dr. Saliu Oseni who signed the letter of introduction of Dr. Anu to HEFAMAA during the registration process is doing all he could albeit illegally to cover up their actions and selling all manners of lies to members in other to ensure that Dr. Adenekan is allowed to contest as the next Chairman of the state NMA and continue the cover-up. The last of this has however not been heard.
