Fred Ezeh, Abuja

Medical and Dental Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal has convicted two medical doctors, Dr. Charles Ikeji and Dr. Terhembe Lan, of professional misconduct and suspended them for six months.

Before the trial and conviction, Dr. Ikeji, has been on suspension from medical practice for the past eight months, while Dr. Lan, has been on suspension from medical practice since July last year.

Chairman of the tribunal, Prof. Abba Hassan, who read the sentence, said the decision of the tribunal was in accordance with the Act of medical and dental practioners.

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He said the punishment for the gross negligence for which the medical doctors were convicted could attract maximum sanctions which is outright striking out of name of the convicted doctors from the list of registered medical doctors, but the tribunal made several consideration before the six months suspension decision was taken.

He said: “Medical negligence often involve lost of life. The punishment, when convicted, could be as lenient as six months suspension from medical practice or outright de-registration of such person. However, we considered the plea of the defense counsels and other factors before we arrived at the decision to suspend the doctors for six months each.”

In their response, both defense counsel to the convicted medical doctors thanked the tribunal for their considerations and the leniency in the sentence. Also, the prosecution counsels thanked members of the tribunal for trial.

Meanwhile, 11 other medical doctors were listed on the cause list trial for different professional misconduct. In addition to that, two other cases reported from the General Medical Council (GMC), United Kingdom, were treated by the tribunal.