Shareholders worry over delay in National Health Bill passage

…Say its passage crucial to health sector

Over the years, providing adequate health care to Nigerians has remained a big challenge to successive administrations. Access to essential drugs and other healthcare services has continued to hamper the process of ensuring Nigerians enjoy quality healthcare.

The Primary Health Care, which is the entry point into the nation’s health services, is unfortunately in the hands of the local governments. However, some individuals who throng such centres are more often than not are greeted with either inadequate access to essential drugs or empty building without medical personnel to administer medicare to patients.

Health experts in the country believe that a bill for an act to provide a framework for the regulation, development and management of a national health system and set standards for rendering health services in the federation is urgently needed. It is also in their opinion that the inability of the National Assembly to pass the National Health Bill into Law may jeopardise the lives of many Nigerians.

In a recent interview with newsmen, Omede Idris of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) disclosed that the Health Bill needed to be passed because the 1999 Constitution had very minimal provision for health. Idris stated that for the health bill to go through this current legislative assembly without passing it into law is an eloquent testimony of government insensitivity to the plight of all Nigerians- adult, men, women, youth, children and newborn alike- health wise.

According to the NMA boss, “over this period of six years, 6 million Nigerian children and 317,400 Nigerian mothers have died. These children and mothers neither have voices nor deep pockets to have alternative choices of place of care. Government must know and realise that health is one of her key social and humanitarian responsibilities to her citizens.”

He added that “the NMA is extremely bothered over the non-passage of the health bill between 2005 and 2007 in the first instance and between 2008 and now. The bill was passed by the Senate in May 2008, but it took the House of Representatives over two years to arrive at the second reading in June 2010. Since that time, the bill has not got the desired attention and attendance of the House.”

Citing example of such bills that have been signed within a very short time, Idris said the anti-terrorism bill was passed with a dispatch, adding that the health bill must be given the same treatment at this moment as it has no encumbrances. He, however, called on President Goodluck Jonathan to exercise his executive power and ensure that the National Health Bill is passed and assented to serve as a legacy for his administration.

Lending his view to BusinessDay, Onyebuchi Chukwu, minister of Health, said he is hopeful the two chambers of the National Assembly will harmonise the bill as pressure is being mounted on them to have the bill passed before the end of this session of the National Assembly.

The minister noted that the bill is something that would guide the health sector, hinting, however, that the bill is not a magic wand that would solve all the problems of the health sector. According to him, the idea is that the bill would enable local, state and the Federal Governments work together, performing and coordinating among themselves.

In his words: “The bill, when passed, would not be a toothless bulldog. The bill would strengthen our health care policy and it starts at the primary level. The thinking is that if we get it right at the primary healthcare level, then we will get it right overall. Primary healthcare would also be better funded because it would then mean that by law, special allocation is made, without recourse to the budgetary allocation for primary healthcare and it also means that, in terms of coordination, in terms of working together, which is very vital to providing healthcare to Nigerians, things would be properly done.”

No doubt, one of the critical factors holding the development of the nation’s health sector is blurred responsibilities for providing healthcare across the various arms of government. This is because the bill when passed by the National Assembly is expected to regulate, develop and manage the national health system with primary health care as the entry point.

Also contained in the bill is a National Tertiary Hospitals Commission saddled with the responsibility of advising the President through the office of the Minister of Health on issues concerning teaching hospitals in the country and a Primary Healthcare Development Fund that will apparently provide basic healthcare to as many as possible through the National Health Insurance Scheme. The fund is to be administered by the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), etc.

With the passage of the National Health Act aimed at addressing anomalies in the sector, quoting Adenike Grange, former minister of Health, “the absence of a National Health Act to back up the National Health Policy has been a fundamental weakness which needs to be tackled. This weakness means that there is no health legislation describing the national health system and defining the roles and responsibilities of the three tiers of government and other stakeholders in the system. This has led to confusion, duplication of functions and sometimes lapses in the performance of essential public health functions.”

After several years of talk on the National Health Bill, all eyes are now on the National Assembly to do the right thing.