bear sits on the mantel above the fireplace. Its beady eyes survey
the small family room; its face always smiles.The bear is in a
prime location because it contains the remains of the worst day of
her life.
A week before that fateful day, Hansberry had been six months
pregnant. She had begun leaking a clear-looking fluid — enough for
her to wear a pad when she went to work. Her OB-GYN, Dr. Charles
Akoda, examined her, but dismissed her concerns, she said,
pronouncing her “fine,” just as he had when she experienced light
bleeding three
months into her term.
Still, Hansberry knew something was not right. “I had never been
six months pregnant before, but I know you’re not supposed to be
leaking any fluid,” she said.
She returned to the clinic, and this time was seen by the other
OB-GYN at the practice. Almost as soon as she was on the
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table, he told her she was in labor. She had been, by that
point, for at least six days; the membranes from her amniotic sac
were hanging down through her cervix and into her vaginal
canal.
Hansberry was rushed to a hospital in an ambulance. Five hours
later, her daughter arrived — three months early — and could not be
saved.
Later, Hansberry would learn that her doctor’s name was not Dr.
Charles Akoda. She would learn that his legal name was Oluwafemi
Charles Igberase. And she would learn that he had used a fake
Social Security card to obtain a medical license and advance his
medical career.
For almost four years, he had performed exams on women, read
sonograms, made birth plans, and delivered babies in Maryland’s
Prince George’s County under a medical license not in his legal
name. He has said he attended medical school before completing his
residency but has provided no verifiable evidence of his
training.
A sketch of Charles Akoda representing himself at a
preemptive hearing for early release from parole in March
2018.KELSEY MCKINNEY
In late 2016, “Akoda,” as he was widely known, pled guilty to a
federal fraud charge. He served six months in prison.
For Hansberry and the other women under his care, though, the
revelation of the fraud has served as a shattering breach of trust,
one that has changed the way they approach their medical care and
their everyday lives, and has made them question institutions they
expected to do them no harm.
Many had struggled with their treatment under Akoda’s care —
they said his bedside manner was brusque and that he was quick to
dismiss their own concerns about their health. In that way, their
experience was not unlike that of legions of women who say they
have their suffering minimized by doctors or their health problems
overlooked.
But, even so, they had clung to at least one truth: They were in
trusted hands.
Akoda declined to be interviewed at length for this story,
citing fears of “further legal exposures.” He answered some brief
questions in a series of text messages, and acknowledged using
fraudulent credentials. But he insisted he is a “fully and properly
trained physician.”
“I made some poor judgement which I know I’ll pay for for the
rest of my life,” he said.
More than 200 of his former patients, including Hansberry, have
joined a class-action suit against Dimensions Health Corp., which
now operates the hospital where they were treated. The suit claims
that the hospital was negligent in its hiring and credentialing of
the man they knew as Akoda — and that they had suffered
“humiliation, shame, mortification and other injuries” under his
care.
The suit charges that he conducted unplanned emergency
cesarean section surgeries that were “not medically necessary” and
that, because his patients did not know his real identity, they
were incapable of providing authorization or consent for any
medical procedures. Dimensions Health Corp. declined to
provide comment for this story.
Despite their discomfort with Akoda, many of the women said they
were too embarrassed about the awkward or sometimes painful
procedures they had endured to raise concerns with anyone in
authority. Even now, as they recalled their interactions with
Akoda, their discovery of his fraud, and their life since, they all
have the same lingering question: How on earth could this have
happened?
Hansberry, who has a trace of a Southern accent and eyes that
hold back her tears, doesn’t have an answer.
“This,” she said, “is gonna be with me forever and ever.”
“I made some poor judgement which I know I’ll
pay for for the rest of my life.”
OLUWAFEMI CHARLES IGBERASE
It is hard to know the exact details of Akoda’s life. Court
documents list 11 possible pseudonyms. It is believed he was born
as Oluwafemi Charles Igberase in Nigeria.
He is around 5’10” with an athletic build and dark brown skin.
His hair is shaved and his head is smooth. He wears brown glasses
that sit on his slightly protruding ears.
There are other known facts, known either because they appear in
federal court documents or were provided during testimony under
oath.
In October 1991, around age 29, Akoda entered the United States
on a nonimmigrant visa. Over the next six years, he applied for and
obtained fraudulent Social Security numbers using different names
and different permanent addresses. He then used those fraudulent
identities to try to and obtain certifications from the Educational
Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, which licenses
international medical school graduates before they can pursue
graduate medical education in the United States.
On multiple occasions, he failed these basic exams for
certification. But he tried again and, in 1993 and 1994, received
separate certifications. Two of those certifications were revoked
after authorities noticed he had used different names and dates in
his applications. (Applicants are not allowed to take these exams
multiple times.) In 1998, however, he received a certification from
the commission again.
He used it to apply to a residency program in New Jersey, where
he was admitted. Officials later noticed he had used a false birth
date and Social Security number and suspended him.
Still, using fraudulent credentials, Akoda applied to Howard
University in Washington, D.C., for a residency in gynecology and
obstetrics. He was admitted and completed his residency at Prince
George’s Hospital Center. At Prince George’s, Akoda met Dr. Abdul
G. Chaudry, who has had operating privileges there since 1980.
Chaudry eventually hired Akoda — who obtained a medical license
from the Maryland Board of Physicians in September 2011 — to join
his clinic.
In the clinic, most of Akoda’s patients saw him by happenstance.
Because both he and Chaudry worked in obstetrics, they were often
on call at the nearby hospital, delivering babies and dealing with
maternity ward patients. When Chaudry was not at the clinic, his
patients would be seen by Akoda, even if they had barely known of
his existence beforehand.
Of the six women who spoke to STAT, all said they had seen Akoda
for the first time when he walked into their room, while they were
expecting to see Chaudry.
They were not always pleased. One patient, Sylvia Nkeng, whose
second child was delivered by Akoda, said most women at the clinic
wanted to be seen by Chaudry. In her case, because she was working
full time, while also taking classes, her schedule wasn’t flexible
enough to allow her to be selective about which doctor she saw.
“All of that put me in a tight corner, where I couldn’t really
do much about it,” she said.
Other women found themselves in similar circumstances. Prince
George’s is a majority-black county, with a large immigrant
population and limited health care options, especially for women’s
health.
Hansberry said she began visiting Chaudry’s clinic because her
mother had been seeing him for years. When she showed up in 2014
for her well-woman’s exam, Akoda saw her — and he was the one to
tell her she was pregnant. She was 35 at the time and, though it
was an accidental pregnancy, she was happy to hear the news.
Over the coming weeks, she was seen by both Chaudry and Akoda,
but the latter more often. During those appointments, she said, she
began to feel like something was off — that Akoda’s care was
different than what she was used to experiencing.
“I know what a [vaginal] exam is supposed to feel like,” she
recalled. “I’ve been doing it for a long time. It was just
different … and at the time I didn’t pinpoint what it was.”
In interviews, women said they were “embarrassed” over the way
Akoda treated them, but never considered telling others, not even
their husbands.
Tina Young, whose child was delivered by Akoda, recalled that
she had never seen Akoda before he walked into her delivery room at
Prince George’s Hospital. At the time, she said, she wasn’t fully
dilated, but Akoda put her feet in the stirrups and had her push.
He reached his hand inside of her without asking, she said, and
stretched her cervix more.
“He was grabbing my child from my womb,” she recalled. “It was
excruciating.”
Young, who had given birth three other times, said she did not
experience any complications with her previous births. But she
didn’t feel normal for six months after the delivery Akoda
performed, and she still has questions. She thinks about her
experience at least once a week — especially when she looks at her
daughter, now 2 years old.
The memory book that Hansberry created to honor her
daughter Zoey.ANDRÉ CHUNG FOR
STAT
In November 2016, when Akoda pled guilty, local news reports in
Washington carried the story.
One of his patients heard his name on the radio while driving
home; she at first assumed she must have misheard. Another heard
about it from a friend at her baby’s christening. One woman dropped
a cereal bowl when she turned around and saw his face on
television.
Hansberry, a paraprofessional for D.C. Public Schools, was at
work when she got a call from her mother with the news. She stepped
into a closet and wept.
For Nkeng, the news was also traumatic. She was watching daytime
television when Akoda’s picture appeared on her screen.
An immigrant from Cameroon, Nkeng speaks hesitantly, but as she
recalled her experience with Akoda, her voice was saturated with
anger. She was never given a detailed birth plan, she said, and
when she raised concerns about cramping or just how big she had
become, Akoda dismissed them.
Nkeng’s baby was due on Sept. 8. When the baby still hadn’t
arrived 10 days later, Akoda told her to meet him at the hospital.
There, he induced labor. Nkeng said he did not tell her what to
expect and gave her no guidance on how long the process might
last.
At the end of two days of labor, Akoda performed a cesarean
section. Her son was 9 pounds, 14 ounces at birth, almost three
pounds heavier than her daughter had been.
“I lost a lot of blood. Was it 2 or 3 pints of blood? They had
to stop it at some point because my body couldn’t take it,” Nkeng
said. “I was just gushing it out.”
Nkeng was at the hospital for three days after the C-section,
but she was still losing a lot of blood. Still, she said, Akoda
ordered her discharge.
Family members refused to take her to her own house, and instead
got her to a relative’s where she could be monitored. There she
continued to bleed heavily. “Where’s my son? Don’t let him see me
die. Move him away from me,” she remembers telling her aunt before
passing out.
Her family called an ambulance, which took her back to the
hospital she had just left. She waited in the emergency room for
Akoda to come back and examine her. He determined she had a blot
clot and, without giving her warning, she said, sent his fist
inside her to remove it.
After he removed the clot, Akoda told her she should be
grateful, that he’d saved her life — and that she wouldn’t be able
to have children for three years.
According to her medical records, Nkeng spent four days in
intensive care before being transferred to another section of the
hospital for another six days before she could go home.
After her release, she returned to the clinic and demanded Akoda
be fired.
“What I experienced at the hospital almost cost me my life,” she
said.
“This is gonna be with me forever and
ever.”
Nkeng was one of the last patients Akoda saw while still working
out of Chaudry’s office. Her son was born in September 2014. Later
that year, Chaudry fired him. He later said in a deposition that
the cause for the termination was Akoda’s tendency to cancel
patient appointments so that he could leave work early, not his
performance as a doctor.
After leaving Chaudry’s office, Akoda started his own practice
in College Park, Md. Following a federal investigation, he was
arrested in June 2016.
Howard University, which declined comment for this story, has
acknowledged that it admitted Akoda to its residency program; it
did so on the basis of his license from the Educational Commission
for Foreign Medical Graduates. Chaudry, who also declined to
comment, acknowledged in a deposition that he never reviewed
Akoda’s certification documents.
Despite those oversights, Akoda never would have been able to
see patients on his own had he not been permitted to work at Prince
George’s Hospital Center.
At Prince George’s, and at most U.S. hospitals, the hiring
process typically involves a rigorous application process. A doctor
must submit all personal documentation, an application including
letters of recommendation, and statements of purpose. That
information is then submitted to a series of committees for
approval: one that checks credentials, one made up of medical
executives, and finally a board of directors.
Akoda’s application to work at Prince George’s included
fraudulent letters of recommendation, and he used his fraudulent
Social Security card and accompanying documents, according to court
documents. The application went through several layers of
gatekeepers without a problem.
Dimensions, the private nonprofit that now operates the
hospital, has argued in court documents that, despite Akoda’s
fraud, he was licensed to practice medicine during the time he was
employed at Prince George’s. Those documents state the he performed
satisfactorily on OB-GYN exams and that Howard University named him
“resident of the year.” Dimensions says he was, in fact, a doctor,
even if his name was not Dr. Akoda.
“As Shakespeare wrote over 400 years ago, ‘What’s in a name?
That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet,’”
Dimensions wrote in a motion to dismiss the case.
A teddy bear containing Zoey’s cremated remains
sits on a mantel next to a photo of Hansberry’s daughter Sky
and her nephew.ANDRÉ CHUNG FOR
STAT
After Akoda’s conviction, Sylvia Nkeng became pregnant again and
decided to switch practices. Tina Young, fearful of becoming
pregnant again, began taking birth control for the first time in
her life, even though she had always wanted 10 children. Monique
Riggins, a plaintiff named in the class-action suit, said she still
feels physical pain from her delivery more than three years
ago.
Yvette Hansberry also got pregnant again. She, too, immediately
switched doctors offices. She drove to a doctor in Virginia whose
credentials she looked up online and verified in person.
Her daughter Zoey’s remains are kept inside the teddy bear on
the mantel.
“That’s your sister,” Hansberry tells her second daughter, Sky,
who is 2 years old.
If Zoey’s bear falls off the mantel — as it does sometimes in a
breeze, or when its head gets far too heavy to sit up anymore — Sky
instructs her mother and grandmother to return it.
On a recent day, Hansberry brought her hands to her face as she
remembered her first pregnancy. Her breath caught for a moment in
the back of her throat, her eyes welling with tears.
“That was my first child. She’s now sitting on my fireplace in
an urn because I had to have her cremated,” she said.
“I trusted him,” she said. “I didn’t think to ask to see his
credentials.”