NMA urges NASS to pass National Health Bill

The Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), on Thursday, expressed frustration over the failure of the National Assembly to pass the National Health Bill into an Act, and the inability of President Goodluck Jonathan to sign it into law, even as the session of the current sixth National Assembly (sixth legislative tenure) is gradually going to an end.To this end, the NMA has called on President Jonathan to exercise his executive power and ensure that the National Health Bill is passed and assented to before the end of this legislative and executive term.Addressing a press conference in Abuja, President of NMA, Dr Omede Idris, said it was now necessary to appeal to the National Assembly for the passage of the bill into an Act of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and subsequent assent by the president, because the 1999 Constitution had very minimal provision for health.The NMA President regretted that the drafted health bill had been with the National Assembly for six years, having been there since 2005 and for the entire part of the current legislative tenure.Dr Idris said: For the health bill to go through this current legislative assembly without passing it into law smacks of the governments insensitivity to the plight of all Nigeriansadults, men, women, youths, children and newborns alike, health wise. Over this period of six years, six million Nigerian children and 317,400 Nigerian mothers have died.These children and mothers do not have voices, neither do they have deep pockets to have alternative choices of place of care. The government must know and realise that health is one of her key social and humanitarian responsibilities to it citizens.
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