Several unlicensed health facilities in the Ashanti Region have been shut down following a recent operation by the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HeFRA) on Monday, October 13.
These health facilities are reported to have been operating without a valid license for the past six years. The crackdown is part of HeFRA’s nationwide efforts to regulate health facilities and ensure compliance.
ANKHOR Diagnostics and RASHBILL Eyecare, both located within the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital premises, are among the affected health facilities.
Weeks ago, HeFRA shut down 17 health facilities across the country for operating under unsafe conditions and with expired licenses. Speaking to the media, HeFRA’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Winfred Baah, noted that his outfit will ensure that all health facilities operate in full compliance with the law and meet safety and quality standards.
“No facility, whether private, corporate, or public, is above the law. We cannot allow anyone to offer clinical services to staff or the public without proper regulation and supervision,” he stressed.
Recently, the Bono East Regional Police Command arrested a man for operating an unlicensed clinic in his residence at Yeji Zongo in the Bono East Region. According to a release shared on the Facebook page of the Ghana Police Service and signed by ASP Appiah Danquah, the suspect, identified as Hanson Osei, was arrested on 28th September 2025 after police, acting on intelligence, proceeded to his residence, where he had converted a chamber-and-hall room into a clinic.
The police revealed that during interrogation, “the suspect admitted that he had been operating the clinic for the past eleven (11) years without authorization from any recognized medical school or licensing authority.”
A search of the premises uncovered several used clinical items, including needles, malaria injection bottles, infusion rubber sachets, and other medical materials. The police therefore, put Mr. Hanson Osei before the Tuobodom District Court on 30th September 2025. He has since been remanded to reappear on 6th October 2025.
Earlier in September, a man posing as a medical doctor at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) was reported to the police after arousing suspicions among hospital personnel. The middle-aged individual, known as Williams Cyril Kohen, underwent questioning by hospital staff during their regular rounds, leading to the verification of their concerns. Following this development, the suspect was handed over to the hospital’s police post, which subsequently transferred the case to the Central Police Command for further investigation.
The hospital’s Public Relations Officer, Kwame Frimpong, conveyed that the institution had implemented security measures aimed at preventing such occurrences in the future.
“At KATH, it is very difficult for people to come and claim that they are doctors and start working there because that is not how the thing works. We have a team-based system where all the team members are known and also remember that it is a training institution, so most of the time the people who join us are our former students and so it is a very close-knit community and the team members are known to each other.
“So you cannot just be part of the team out of the blue. And because patients are allocated to teams, you cannot go to any patient when you are not part of the team. Again, we have this electronic medical records system where every member of the medical staff has a password specific to them, and you have to use this system to attend to patients, to review the cases, and to give prescriptions for medicine to be dispensed. Once you don’t have the password because you are not a staff or member of the medical teams you cannot even attend to the patient,” he stated.
In 2019, the Medical and Dental Council arrested a suspected quack doctor at Anyinam in the Eastern Region. The suspect, Kankam Nkrumah, was caught red-handed at the consulting room of Yesukrom Medical Center practicing medicine without a license.
Information gathered by Starr News indicated that the Investigative Unit of the Medical and Dental Council, led by the Administrative Manager, Bright Atsu Fuglo, and Desmond Asamoah, on January 21, 2019, stormed the community to undertake its routine headcount of licensed practitioners, medical doctors, physician assistants, and certified registered anesthetists at Anyinam.
Nonetheless, during the exercise, they noticed the suspect, Nkrumah Kankam, sitting in the consulting room, allegedly practicing medicine without a license. He was questioned and subsequently arrested and handed over to the Anyinam Police.
The Public Relations Officer of the Eastern Regional Police Command, DSP Ebenezer Tetteh, confirmed the arrest to Starr News when contacted. The police retrieved 15 patient folders and one stethoscope as exhibits while investigations continued.
Also, in 2023, six people in the Kumasi metropolis were arrested for dealing in fake herbal products. Their arrest was carried out as a result of a collaboration between the Ashanti Regional Office of the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and the police.
The swoop, which targeted dealers in unregistered herbal products, formed part of routine market surveillance conducted by the authority to clamp down on perpetrators.
The culprits, who had been granted bail pending further investigations, included two community information center operators and four herbal product dealers.
Mr. John Laryea Odai-Tettey, the Regional Head of the FDA, speaking to the media after the exercise, said the Public Health Act, 2012, mandated the FDA to ensure food, drugs, cosmetics, medical devices, chemical substances, blood, blood products, and tobacco were wholesome for public consumption.
He said the authority had the responsibility to ensure the safety and quality standards of such products as prescribed by the Act. “It is our responsibility to ensure that products under our regulation and being sold for public consumption and use are registered, and that is why we embark on market surveillance to check the safety of the products,” he noted.
He said beyond the registration of regulated products, his outfit had the duty to monitor the market to identify persons producing sub-standard versions of registered products.
“Unfortunately, a lot of people do not go to accredited health facilities to seek healthcare, but rather patronize some of these products without verifying their safety,” he pointed out. Mr. Odai-Tettey said the activities of the perpetrators were inimical to public safety and called on the public to support the FDA to flush out such miscreants for the good of the general population.
He said the doors of the FDA were open to manufacturers of herbal and other regulated products to submit their products for scrutiny to ensure they were safe for public consumption.
Failure by manufacturers to submit their products for verification, he said, amounted to a violation of the Act, and he cautioned that the FDA would go after such recalcitrant manufacturers in the interest of public health.
He advised the public to patronize products from registered and recognized dealers, such as pharmacies and licensed over-the-counter chemical sellers, for their own safety. Wholesalers and retailers of herbal products must also ensure they purchase from licensed manufacturers in order not to fall victim to FDA operations, he stated.
