Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) detectives in Kilifi County, on Saturday, arrested a man masquerading as a medical doctor who had been treating patients without a license.
The 36-year-old man was arrested after he walked into the Malindi Sub-County Hospital and started attending to patients in one of the hospital's wards, raising eyebrows amongst other medical practitioners at the facility.
An alarm was raised with the hospital superintendent, David Mang'ong'o who approached the quack and asked him to brandish his documents and prove he was legally allowed to work as a doctor.
“When we interrogated him, the man failed to produce documents to prove that he was a practising medical doctor and we called DCI sleuths who arrested him,” Mang'ong'o stated.
DCI detectives apprehended him, taking him to the nearest police station as they launched investigations.
Activity prior to his arrest indicated that he had also obtained money from some of his church members in Malindi after promising them that he would attend to them.
The hospital has now put in place measures requiring all their medical staff to walk with badges at all times and present their official documents at the gate to prevent such future incidents.
Furthermore, they have asked all the patients to not pay in cash, and if any doctor requests cash from them then they should immediately report the matter.
His arrest comes after the government initiated a crackdown targeting quacks after an investigation raised a red flag over the prevalence of fake certificates in the public sector.
The Public Service Commission (PSC) in its report released on February 13, showed that over 2,000 civil servants were reported to have acquired jobs using fake certificates.
On February 26, a ward administrator was arrested in a crackdown in Marsabit for having used a fake certificate to acquire a job in the devolved unit.
The suspect had forged a Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) certificate and a Diploma in Community Development and Social Work to fraudulently gain employment in the Marsabit County Government where he had worked since 2018.
