After exhaustive deliberations, the House of Representatives yesterday passed the amended version of the National Health Bill (NHB) 2014 or rather the ‘People’s Version’.

The Senate had earlier in the year passed a version of the NHB, which was however, rejected by other health workers under the aegis of the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) and Allied Health Professionals Association (APHA). 

 

Members of JOHESU and AHPA which include pharmacists, nurses, medical laboratory scientists, physiotherapists, radiographers and other health workers besides medical doctors had “strongly enjoined the House of Representatives to conduct a proper public hearing to redress outstanding contentious issue in the NHB 2014 rather than adopting a concurrence of the flawed version passed by the Senate in the ultimate professional and public interest.”

 

President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Olumide Akintayo said: “We are happy that the National Assembly that is the House of Representatives has at last passed the people’s version of the NHB. We were not happy with some sections of the Bill passed earlier in the year by the Senate. We complained and asked for our input, which the House of Representatives obliged us. We are happy with the Bill as passed. It reflects the expectations of 90 per cent of the workforce in the health sector. It is a way forward towards better, more accessible, affordable and universal health care.”

 

JOHESU and AHPA had consistently called on the National Assembly (NASS) to amend Section 1(1) of the NHB 2014, which was still reflected as in the original draft passed by the Senate recently. 

The controversial Section 1 (1) of the version passed by the Senate posits that a “National Health System will provide regulatory framework for the regulation of health services in Nigeria.”