Nigerian Doctor Loses Licence Over Fraud in Canada

Ayokunle Fagbemigun, a Nigerian doctor based in Etobicoke, a district in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has been stripped of his medical licence for defrauding the Ontario government through its Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).

According to the Toronto Sun, Fagbemigun, a family physician, billed the Ontario government for 42,000 tests he never performed on patients, between 2014 and 2018.

During the period, the Nigerian physician was said to have billed the government for supposedly drug-screening patients as young as nine. He also allegedly claimed to have conducted eight pregnancy tests in one year on another patient who had, all through the period, not been sexually active.

“Dr. Fagbemigun’s misconduct is extremely serious,” the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal said in a statement on Thursday.

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“He took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the health care system to which he was not entitled. He did so intentionally, and for his personal gain. He defrauded the government many times over an extended period.”

The panel also stated that the physician was in the habit of sending his patients, who were largely from Africa and the Caribbean, for cardiac tests so he could benefit from referral fees.

“The tribunal would be failing in its duty to protect the public if it allowed Dr. Fagbemigun to continue to practise medicine,” the panel further said.

Apart from losing his licence, Fagbemigun has been ordered to pay back $35,000 to the government. Medical experts in Canada however believe the fine is a slap on the wrist compared to the estimated hundreds of thousands of dollars he stole from taxpayers.

The Ontario government is yet to declare whether it would still pursue a court case to get the doctor to refund all other monies he fraudulently claimed during the four-year period.

FIJ