JUST as some stakeholders have urged a speedy assent to the National Health Bill (NHB), playing up its advantages, health workers, under the aegis of the Joint Health Workers Union (JOHESU)/Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations (AHPA), which represents over 95 per cent of the entire workforce in the sector, are asking the National Assembly to reject it.

According to the unions, it has become obvious that section 1(1) of the bill, as currently packaged, is an attempt by medical stakeholders to undermine the professional autonomy of other health professions as witnessed recently in Ghana, where parliament repealed laws that backed the autonomy of all the health professions after passing a health Act.

The Senate last Wednesday passed the NHB after several public hearings and inputs from various stakeholders in the sector. 

However, in a joint statement yesterday by JOHESU Chairman, Dr. Ayuba Wabba, and President of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), who is also AHPA Chairman, Olumide Akintayo, the unions threatened to boycott the proposed Presidential Summit on Universal Health billed for March 10, if the Federal Government continues to ignore their fundamental recommendations/resolutions. 

They accused the Presidency and all federal organs of insensitivity, as exemplified in the marginalization of all cadres of health workers apart from doctors, with glaring ignominy. The workers accused the Senate of insensitivity in adopting the bill in its original version after being sensitized on its defects. 

“The Senate allowed itself to be hoodwinked by Senator Ifeanyi Okowa and his fellow travellers on the Committee on Health,” the unions said. “For sake of clarification, the grand agenda albeit clandestinely to force the flawed Health Bill on Nigerians was sealed in January 2013 at the maiden Doctor’s Summit in Asaba, which was graced by the Senate President, David Mark as chairman of the occasion.”

According to Wabba and Akintayo, JOHESU/AHPA has now resolved to begin massive mobilization of its teeming membership in preparation to working with other political stakeholders who would genuinely move healthcare endeavours forward in Nigeria.

They alleged that the Federal Government’s glaring evidence of ineptitude in this regard include: Non-appointment of representatives of health professional associations to participate at the national conference despite assurances by the Secretary to Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, to take up the matter with President Goodluck Jonathan for approval at the recent consultative meeting with government;

The planned appointment of another medical doctor as Minister of State for Health despite the glaring episodes of undisguised bias by the incumbent Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, who has reduced the prestige of the ministry to a ‘Ministry of Doctors’; and

As if taking a cue from the unending recklessness of the Executive, the Senate recently passed a very defective health bill that took little or no cognizance of salient and fundamental concerns of the JOHESU/AHPA block in the sector.

On why they were rejecting the NHB as passed they said, “it is important to declare that contrary to the impression created by Okowa, who is a medical doctor, as of today, the health industry in Nigeria is left largely unregulated, without norms and standard, lacking protection of health users and providers; 

“That the bill is expected to close the gap, providing legal framework needed in the regulation, development and management of national health system, setting standard and norms in health practice and research, there are existing legal framework for regulating and controlling pharmacists through the PCN Act, doctors through the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) Act, nurses through Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria (NMCN) Act and Medical Laboratory Scientists through the Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria (AMLSN) Act.” 

Therefore, they lamented the discriminatory clauses that amount to legislating against privileges a citizen of Nigeria could enjoy when positions are reserved for one profession to the detriment of others as in section 9(2) a of the bill, which proposes that the Director of Hospital Services, a slot reserved for doctors, will be the Chairman of the National Tertiary Health Institutions Standard Committee albeit permanently. 

They added: “We have had propagandist postulations that the bill would check infant and maternal mortality and put healthcare on the right path, but we say this is a ruse. The only way to get healthcare marching again is to inject new thinking and fresh attitude in the way our laws and policies evolve. When we match this with good implementation plans, we might be on the way to solving our problems.”