Police dock Medical Doctor for detaining nursing mother, her child for 16 months

From: Madu Ezenoha,  Enugu

The Police on Friday arraigned Dr. Okafor Ikechukwu, the Medical Director of Divine Grace Hospital and Maternity, Enugu for locking up a missing mother and her new born baby for 16 months for failing to settle their medical bill.

The police arraigned Dr. Okafor before an Enugu Magistrate’s Court for unlawful detention and confinement of one Ms Chiamaka Ogbodo and her child, Kosisochukwu Ogbodo for a year and four months.

The one-count charge also accused Dr. Okafor of holding the mother and her newborn child against “her will or otherwise unlawfully, depriving them of their personal liberty and thereby committed an offence punishable under 316 of the criminal code 30 volume II law of Enugu State of Nigeria, 2014”.

The police prosecutor, DSP Oliji Clement stated that Dr. Ikechukwu, owner of Divine Grace Hospital and Maternity, Awkunanaw, from April 2016 to 1th June 2016 and from 31st August 2016 to 8th day of July 2017 did unlawfully detain Chiamaka and her baby boy, of which she was delivered by the doctor, for her inability to pay
hospital bill.

After the charges were read to Dr. Ikechukwu, he pleaded not guilty.
The Magistrate, A. O. Eze granted the suspect bail in the sum of N100,000.00 with a surety of level 16 officer with three-year tax clearance certificate.

The matter was adjourned to August 1st, 2017.

Chiamaka told journalists that she put to bed at the suspect’s hospital on April 10, 2016 but that her family was unable to pay all the bills at once.

She said that she lost her father in the process compounding her family’s financial challenge and that every appeal made to the doctor to even allow her to go and see the corpse of her late father before his interment fell on deaf ears.
She said that it took the intervention of Human Rights Volunteer Corps (HRVC) with Mr. Larry Oguego as national coordinator, to use the police to rescue her from the doctor’s ‘cell’ on July 8, 2017.

She further alleged that while in detention several attempts were made on her by the doctor and his friends to violet her sexually but she resisted.

Larry Oguego told journalists that it was wrong and unlawful for Dr.  Okafor to have detained Chiamaka, saying that the only option for him was to have taken her to court to compel her relations to enter into an agreement on how to pay the money by installment while Chiamaka and her baby were released.

He said it was inhuman to have treated Chiamaka like an animal and subjecting the new born baby to such horrible and solitary confinement for the first 16 months of his life.