Medical certificates on a hospital's letterhead, a 'doctor' the hospital had never heard of, seized medical equipment: the two foreign nationals arrested in Ouakam, Dakar, in February 2026

Senegal regulates its doctors through the Ordre des médecins, and the rule Thieysenegal restated when it reported this case is simple: only practitioners who hold the required diplomas and are registered with the Order may perform medical acts or issue medical certificates. The rule matters because a medical certificate opens doors. It excuses an absence from work or school, and it is seldom questioned once it carries a hospital's letterhead and a signature.

According to PressAfrik and Thieysenegal, the Brigade territoriale de Ouakam in Dakar received information on Wednesday 25 February 2026 about a man presenting himself as a doctor and issuing medical certificates on the letterhead of a hospital where he was not registered. Two days later, on Friday 27 February, gendarmes arrested the main suspect and an alleged accomplice, both described as foreign nationals. PressAfrik, relaying the gendarmerie's account, reported that the hospital whose letterhead appeared on the certificates was one where the main suspect was entirely unknown. Neither the hospital nor the two men were named.

Searches of the suspects' homes turned up administrative documents, including medical certificates described as allegedly forged, and a batch of medical equipment said to have been used in the activity, Thieysenegal reported. The Gendarmerie nationale announced the arrests in a communiqué on Monday 2 March 2026, relayed by Wakat Séra. PressAfrik quoted the offences the two men are accused of: illegal practice of medicine, usurpation of function, forgery of administrative documents and endangering the life of others. According to Thieysenegal, investigators are now trying to establish how many documents were issued and to identify possible victims.

What made the scheme work was not a convincing qualification but a convincing piece of paper. A hospital letterhead carries the institution's authority, and the people who receive a certificate rarely telephone the hospital to ask whether the signing doctor exists. Nothing in the reports suggests anyone checked whether the signatory appeared on the register of the Ordre des médecins. Senegal has seen this problem before: a nursing diploma bought abroad for a promotion at a Dakar health centre and a document ring in Pikine are recorded elsewhere on this site.

For a student or family weighing medicine abroad, the lesson is to verify the person, never the paper. A letterhead and a stamp prove nothing; a registration number checked against the regulator's own register does. An admission letter on a university's header should be confirmed with the institution directly, using contact details you found yourself. Pay fees to the institution, not to an intermediary, keep your original certificates in your own hands, and treat any document that cannot be matched to an official register as worthless.