By Sola Ogundipe

In its appraisal of the National Health Bill recently passed by the National Assembly, the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria has objected to what it described as “discriminatory clauses” in the document.

President of the Association, Pharm. Azubike Okwor, who noted in a statement that the health Bill was flawed and comprised “major aberrations”, said the Society “is of the firm conviction that the Presidency must return the Health Bill to the National Assembly to redress the said lapses before assenting to the Bill.

Citing relevant sections of the 1999 constitution to object to what he described as “discriminatory clauses” in the BIll, Okwor said: “one of the major aberrations of the Health Bill, Section 8(2) vests the Executive Chairmanship of the proposed National Tertiary Hospitals Commission permanently on Doctors. The scale of the aberration in Section 8(2) was extended to Section 11(2) (b) which also vests Executive Secretaryship of the Federal Capital Territory Primary Healthcare Board on medical doctors.

According to Okwor: “The Health Bill is vague in its provisions for representation in a number of sections where it refers to representative of medical services of institutions. An example is in Section 6 where references are made to representative of each of the Armed Forces Medical Corps. This is a cumbersome and potentially explosive situation as Section 62 under interpretations does not define persons who constitute medical services in these institutions.

Continuing, he said:”It is pertinent to make references to the contentious Section 1(1) of the Health Bill which declares that the National health System shall define and provide a framework for standards and regulation of health services.

“In order to allay fears of care providers and to prevent mischief making or even legal tussles in the near future, we implore the National Assembly to draw a parallax from Section 42(d) of the same Health Bill which takes cognisance of conflicts with existing legislation.

In the spirit of this, the PSN proposes that Section 1(1) of the Health Bill should read:- There is hereby established for the Federation, the National Health System, which shall define and provide a framework for standards and regulation of health services which are not in conflict with any other legislation and which shall”.

Okwor argued that the Society finds it necessary to draw attention of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency to the provision of Section 10(3)b of the proposed Bill which states to wit 25 percent of the fund shall be used to provide essential drugs for eligible primary healthcare facilities,” he asserted.