How a Nigerian doctor worked in 14 different British government hospitals despite not even knowing how to perform CPR



Britain is one messed-up country

A foreign doctor who didn’t even know how to carry out mouth-to-mouth resuscitation worked in 14 British hospitals. Dr Lucius Okere was allowed to work as a locum for ten months even though he didn’t understand the meaning of basic medical terms such as “crash call” - thinking it meant car crash.

He also slapped patients to see if they were conscious and didn’t properly wash his hands. Incredibly, not one of the 14 hospital trusts which employed the Dr Okere checked his ability to speak English or his competence.

The Nigerian-born doctor, who qualified in Bologna, Italy, was finally struck off by the General Medical Council in January after staff at one of the hospitals reported serious concerns. During the GMC hearing he was described as a “dangerous and frightening doctor”, “everybody’s nightmare” and a “disaster waiting to happen.”

This is the latest case to highlight how patients are routinely being put at risk at the hands of EU doctors who are allowed to work in hospitals and surgeries without formal checks on their language and competence.

Due to strict rules imposed by Brussels, the GMC watchdog is banned from carrying out tests on doctors coming in from EU member states because it restricts the “free movement of labour”.

All other doctors coming countries across the world - including Australia, Canada and the US - have to prove that their medical skills and language are up to scratch before being allowed to work.

This flaw in the regulation was tragically exposed in 2008 when 70-year-old David Gray died after being given ten times the recommended dose of morphine by an incompetent German GP Daniel Ubani, who was covering an out of hours shift at a surgery in Cambridgeshire.

In the wake of this case, both the Department of Health has urged health trusts to carry out their own checks on doctors – which are allowed under EU law – but many are failing to do so.

Dr Okere, who is married with children, first came to England in May 2007 and settled in Islington, North London. He signed up with an agency CES Locums and was sent to work at various hospitals including East Surrey Hospital Trust in Redhill, Kettering General and Lymington New Forest Hospital in Hampshire. Each time his contract was terminated within a few days over serious concerns of his competence.

But as none of the trusts reported him to the GMC, he was allowed to carry on working and moved on to different hospitals.

He was finally referred to the watchdog by staff at Epsom General hospital in Surrey, where he had worked for four days in 2008 before being dismissed. But even after he had been reported, he was still allowed to work in at least two NHS hospitals.

At the GMC hearing it emerged that nobody knew exactly what sort of work Dr Okere had carried out in Italy before coming to Britain. He qualified in 1993 before spending five years training for his diploma in Surgery. It is believed he then worked in a small convalescent hospital which treated minor illnesses – any patient who became seriously ill was transferred to a main hospital for treatment.

At the hearing it emerged that he did not know how to “scrub up”, where surgeons wash their hands and arms very thoroughly before an operation. It was also revealed that while working at Lymington Hospital he mistook the meaning of a “crash call” – the medical term for a cardiac arrest – for a car crash.

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