I’m not killer doctor - Obengfo

Dr. Dominic Obeng-Andoh, owner and Chief Executive of the Obengfo Hospital, says he would be reporting to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) this morning but has challenged claims that he is a quack doctor and dared any person with such evidence to make it public rather than tarnish his reputation with malicious rumours.

I am not a quack doctor. I have training for all the things that I do, and my hospital is fully equipped with some of the most advanced equipment for doing what we do here. And this is very important, I have not killed anybody. I am not a killer I am a medical doctor. Of course, it is a hospital, and someone may die here or at any other hospital anywhere in the world. Having a death situation in a hospital is possible and does not make a doctor a killer,” Dr. Obeng-Andoh also known as ‘Obengfo’ told DAILY GUIDE.

The medical doctor, at the close of last week, became a subject of media bashing after a radio station in Accra reported that three persons with undisclosed identities, who went to the Obengfo Hospital for ‘liposuction’, had suffered life threatening complications. The station reported further that another patient, who drove to the hospital healthy and strong, was later found dead in a pool of blood by his family, and they noticed he had ‘three openings’: two on the side of his body and another at the umbilical cord.

DAILY GUIDE visited the Obengfo Hospital and first asked Dr. Obeng-Andoh whether it was true he was under police investigations over the allegations. The Food and Drugs Board was the first to invite me on Thursday, apparently because of the media reports. I showed up, and after some three hours management could not meet me that day, so they rescheduled the meeting to Friday.

On Friday, I went there only for them to say I should rather go to the CID headquarters to write my statement. I went, wrote my statement, got bailed and the police asked me to return on Monday morning at 10am. I spent a few hours there, but they were very professional,” he stated. Reports say you have not been licensed to practise as a surgeon.

I am a doctor. I have never made any claim that I am a plastic surgeon, and I don’t even believe in saying things like that. I tell my patients what I can do for them, and I do them. However, the procedure of liposuction is an aspect of plastic surgery. It is just like doing a caesarean section which in actual fact forms part of the surgical operation of a gynaecologist. But a doctor who performs a caesarean section must not necessarily be a gynaecologist to do that. The rule for medical practice is that no doctor must do a procedure that the person has no training in. Your moral grounds would not even allow you to do a procedure you have no training in. Training comes in various ways. Aside from the knowledge base you have, you also need hands-on training.

Have you been trained as a Doctor?

I was trained at the school of Medical Sciences at the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. I graduated in 1997. I had my house job training there and then at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. Then I worked as a Medical Officer in Korle Bu. I have been in private practice since 2000. But a few years back, I went to Florida to have this specialised training in liposuction. I did the basic, intermediary and the advanced training in liposuction. I got a specific training in high definition liposuction through the use of Vaser.

So where from the tag ‘quack doctor’?

I find this very strange. I heard one doctor say I am not a plastic surgeon. For the records, you don’t need to be a plastic surgeon to do liposuction, just like you don’t need to be an Obstetrician Gynaecologist to do a caesarean session. You don’t need to become a surgical consultant of a professor to do a hernia surgery. It is needless to cloud this entire thing in some mystery when we know that the most important thing needed is that the person must be trained to stand alone to do the operation and handle complications.

Have You Been Banned?

Nobody had banned me from practising as a doctor. My licence is clean and intact and my record as a doctor is very good and worth writing home about. What is true is that somewhere last year, the Medical and Dental Council came out with a judgment that I had been suspended from practising as a medical doctor for three years because I had mounted a billboard advertising my services as a cosmetic doctor.

So this had nothing to do with your credentials as a medical doctor?

No way. It was over a sign board. They said I had put up a sign board, so they had suspended me for three years. I found that regrettable that a body can meet over such an allegation and without even inviting me to ask me if it was true or not, or at least hearing me defend myself as natural justice demands, they sat over an issue which they said concerns me and passed judgement on their own and decided I should be banned for three years. Incredible!!! My lawyers were quick to challenge that decision, and the case is pending before the High Court.

But let us even assume without admitting that I had indeed erred by putting up a signboard, so you suspend a medical doctor for three years over a sign-board? Jesus Christ!!! Which hospital in Ghana does not have a signboard of some sort? And I find nothing wrong with that. I even believe that because of the illiteracy rate of our society, we should be able to communicate through visuals, especially for persons who need medical attention but cannot read and understand the word ‘HOSPITAL’.

But Your Patients Are Complaining To The Media

Jesus me! Here are people I do not even know and I find that strange. A journalist comes to my office that a patient I treated had reported to his media house that there were complications after the treatment and I asked who the patient is, so we know what exactly the situation is. No one has told me who exactly the patient is or what exactly is the complaint. All I hear on Joy FM and read on their website is that three of my patients, whose names they want to keep secret, are saying that they have life-threatening complications after coming to me. How do I even respond to that?

Even if you gave me the patient’s name, I would never discuss the person’s medical history with you until the patient in question gives me a categorical permission written and signed. So in the absence of permission from this unknown patient, I wonder what I should be telling the media when a journalist decides to run down my reputation and credibility with such a sad report.

Cosmetic surgery is all about appearance. So the journalist may have to see pictures of the state in which the person came to the hospital and compare that with the state of the person after the procedure. But to just put a picture that shows some scars on someone’s stomach on the internet and say the person was my patient so I should explain, I find that odd. Let us get the person’s permission to show pictures of the ‘before and after’ photographs.

Have You Ever Had Complications?

I cannot say I am a perfect doctor who has never had complications. Any professional doctor who has done surgical procedures and not had complications may have not practised long enough. Complications are not strange in our practice and sometimes come up and are treated. But it does not mean the doctor is a quack. I have done several operations running into thousands. Judge me by my record and not just by one or two selected instances which I have not even been told who the patient is or what the situation is. It is true I have the requisite training, experience and most advanced equipment, but I am not God. Yes, I have several thousand of success stories, but I won’t say I have never had a complication that had to be reviewed and treated.

When a patient has a complication, he may return to you or go to another doctor. I have had several patients coming to me with complications. Sometimes I treat them or refer them back to their doctors because they may have the full history and all that. But I do not go to the media to condemn the doctor. That is unethical, and I am surprised some doctors would go to the media to condemn me when they have not even spoken to me to ask what exactly the situation is. This is not right.

You Left A Man Dead In A Pool of Blood

There has been no patient such as that who has had any procedure that has been left in a pool of blood for a relative to come and see that way. That narration is absolutely wrong. If you say there was an instance of death, well, my condolences go to the family, but issues of life and death are such that sympathy is always shown to the bereaved so let me leave it here because a specific name has been mentioned, but I do not have the permission to discuss the person’s health record with the public. In general terms, when a death occurs in a hospital, there is a corona’s investigation and report and all that. But as I said, I do not have any permission to disclose any details.

Any Final Words?

People are crying silently because they have lost the shape of their body and do not know there is a treatment or remedy for it. Others who have the means are travelling outside the country to do these same things I do here because they do not know we can do these things here. Interestingly, we are now having clients from other countries flying to Ghana just to do liposuction.

Our critics are mostly people who do not understand what we do here or they have their own prejudices about cosmetic surgery. These procedures I am doing have been done for my own wife and people who are close by me. Why should I want to see my wife dead or people close to me dead? I only pray that as we go along the line, some of my happy patients would come out to tell their stories about the experience they have had.