Fifteen cases since 2014, a Malian doctor's stolen identity and a prison release on a certificate signed by another fake doctor: how Ouagadougou's Order of Physicians hunts impostors

Under Article 37 of Burkina Faso's law 028-2012, nobody may practise medicine without being entered on the roll of the Order of Physicians. In the capital, registrations and complaints go through the Conseil régional de l'Ordre des médecins de Ouagadougou (CROM). It is the roll, not the diploma, that decides who may treat patients.

On 23 February 2017 the CROM, under its president Prof. Charlemagne Ouédraogo, held a press conference on illegal medical practice. According to Wakat Séra, it had found at least 15 cases since 2014, seven of them emblematic. The best known involved the identity of a real Malian doctor, used by an Ivorian practising in Burkina Faso. Burkina24 reported that he was caught by the gendarmerie on 10 June 2014, sentenced to 24 months, then provisionally released on a forged medical certificate, and left the country. The certificate was signed by Mahamadi Ouédraogo, entered on the roll in March 2005 on a fake Côte d'Ivoire diploma, who had performed emergency surgery in Sapouy and was awaiting trial. Burkina24 also listed Mamadou Dicko, a self-styled anaesthetist with a fake "University of Gabon" diploma, arrested in December 2015 after a hospital job application exposed irregularities.

In January 2018 the Order told Wakat Séra that about ten alleged fake doctors had been taken to court in four years. The latest was Pascal Kiénou. The Order began investigating on 9 October 2017 after spotting a prescription stamped "médecin généraliste" by someone not on the roll; he was charged, jailed and convicted in Ouagadougou, the court finding he had also forged his Order registration card and attestation. A fake gynaecologist received three months in prison. A fake rheumatologist was sentenced, then freed on appeal on a fake medical certificate signed by yet another fake doctor, and was on the run.

The weak point in every case was paperwork. A diploma said to come from Côte d'Ivoire was enough to put a man on the roll in 2005. The Order's own cards were copied. Courts were misled by certificates signed by people who were not doctors. "With a computer and the internet, anything can be made for you today," Prof. Ouédraogo told Wakat Séra. Several impostors were caught only when a prescription or a job application reached someone who checked the name against the roll.

For a student weighing a medical degree abroad, the lesson cuts both ways. Your diploma will one day be checked against the Order's roll, so confirm before paying anyone that the school is in the WHO World Directory, and keep every original. And when your family needs a doctor, a white coat and a stamp prove nothing; ask whether the name is on the roll.