An undercover visit on 14 August 2025, a GH¢50,000 bail: the physician assistant charged with using 'Dr' at Good Care Medical Centre, Accra

In Ghana the Medical and Dental Council (MDC) registers doctors and dentists under the Health Professions Regulatory Bodies Act, 2013 (Act 857). Physician assistants are a distinct, regulated cadre, and a physician assistant's licence does not entitle the holder to practise as a doctor. The council also investigates complaints, and in the case below its own investigator was the complainant who took the matter to the police.

According to the Ghanaian Times and Adomonline, both reporting on 12 November 2025, Ebenezer Sarpong, 41, a businessman and trained physician assistant from a private university in Accra, was arraigned on three charges: wilfully and falsely using the title 'Dr', practising or professing to practise medicine or dentistry without registration, and receiving payment for that practice. He pleaded not guilty and was granted bail of GH¢50,000 with two sureties to be justified with landed property. The case, heard before Susana Eduful, was adjourned to 10 December 2025.

The prosecution, led by Chief Inspector Jonas Lawer, told the court that an undercover operation on 14 August 2025 at Good Care Medical Centre in Swalaba, near Bukom in Accra, a facility Sarpong owns, found him practising medicine without authorisation. Adomonline reported that the operation was carried out by the council's administrative manager for complaints and investigations, and that the council reported the matter to the Regional Police Command four days later. Police found him consulting patients, some admitted and others in the outpatient department. In his caution statement, the prosecution said, he admitted that he was a trained physician assistant with no licence to practise medicine; further investigation, according to the reports, confirmed that he had used the title 'Dr' and received payment for medical services. These are allegations; he has denied the charges and the case is before the court.

The mechanism is scope creep by a licensed mid-level professional. A physician assistant is a real, regulated cadre in Ghana, which is precisely why the title 'Dr' on the door of his own facility was believable: he knew the vocabulary, the drugs and the paperwork. Patients had no reason to ask whether he was on the medical register as opposed to the physician assistants' register, and ownership of the facility meant no employer stood between him and the patients to ask either.

For patients the lesson is that 'Dr' is a legal title, not a courtesy, and the category in which a practitioner is registered can be checked with the MDC before treatment is paid for. For students in Ghana and elsewhere, the case shows that holding a genuine health qualification does not protect against prosecution if you practise beyond it; the Act 857 charges turn on registration and the use of the title, not on whether the accused has any training. A physician assistant, nurse or foreign graduate awaiting licensing exams is not a doctor until the council says so.