[imagesource:LinkedIn]
The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) has a load on their shoulders as they continue to crack down on fake doctors operating across our country.
They’ve been confronting and arresting bogus medical workers all over the show, including most recently, the TikTok famous ‘Dr Matthew Lani’.
The 27-year-old influencer from Gauteng started rolling out medical advice on TikTok, where he claimed to be a graduate of Wits Medical School and the “youngest” owner of a pharmaceutical company in South Africa. He allegedly posed as an employee of Helen Joseph Hospital and moved freely within the hospital.
He managed to gather 285,000 followers in what would become a short-lived TikTok career, where he would share ‘expert’ knowledge on HIV prevention and management methods, as well as skincare tips every once in a while, per The Citizen.
When a social media frenzy surrounding the validity of his qualifications began to churn, he posted a TikTok video laying out his impressive resumé, claiming that he received his medical degree from Wits University where he studied from 2014 to 2021 – graduating at just 21. He achieved all this, he said, without a matric qualification. Rather he said he has a high school diploma from Cambridge International College, and that he skipped ahead in school to finish up at 16. Ja, right, my bru. Fat chance.
When things were really heating up on the ‘bullsh*t-o-metre’, the dude seemingly vanished from the social media platform.
The HPCSA confirmed that Matthew Zingelwa-Lani was not registered as a health practitioner, and practising without registration is a criminal offence.
The Gauteng Department of Health further revealed that Lani had assumed the identity of a second-year medical intern, Dr Sanele Sobani Vambani Zingelwa, who has been at Tembisa Tertiary Hospital. He had assumed this identity when people were questioning why his name wasn’t registered with the HPCSA as he had said it was.
“Lani managed to weave his way into the system pretending to be in the employ of Helen Joseph Hospital where he moved around the hospital corridors curating content for social media,” the department said.
TimesLIVE reported that Zingelwa has opened a case of identity fraud at Thembisa police station.
Furthermore, the University of the Witwatersrand distanced itself from Lani, calling on him to retract any references to having studied at the university. EWN reports that Wits couldn’t even find the name of the supposed doctor on its database and has concluded that he certainly is not a Wits alumnus.
WITS SETS THE PUBLIC RECORD STRAIGHT
Following claims made by “Dr Matthew Lani” on social media and based on the facts at hand, Wits cannot find any person who graduated by the name of Matthew Bongani Zingelwa or Sanele Zingelwa in recent years.
Read the full statement below. pic.twitter.com/lVFzPpeYdv
— Wits University (@WitsUniversity) October 9, 2023
It is clear that Lani only graduated from the University of Lies.
