By SOLA OGUNDIPE

A conglomeration of health professionals has cautioned President Goodluck Jonathan against signing the revised 2014 National Health Bill into law.

Speaking last week at a media gathering organised by the Foundation for African Cultural Heritage, FACH, in association with the  Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Association of Medical Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria and the Nigerian Society of Physiotherapists, the group unanimously described the  current health bill as it stands, as a threat to the physical and moral fibre of the nation. The groups condemned the permission for collection of human tissues, human eggs, sperm, blood plasma etc., for experiments through donor programmes.

Further, they denounced what they described as  “Eggxploitation”  in which the egg cells will be removed from young girls through the facilitated egg donor programme and creation of embryos for research from poor uneducated African women. The groups also frowned at   the  under-representation in the Bill of other stakeholders in the sector at the National Council on Health which is the highest policy making body in the health sector.

Speaking, Executive Secretary and Public Relations Officer, FACH, Mrs .I. Awagu and Ms. Uzoma Ijeoma, respectively, accused the Senate of passing the NHB 2014 which is essentially a replica of the NHB 2008/2012.

Alleging betrayal of the Nigerian people, the established that FACH is seeking that Articles 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, and 1  should be expunged from the National Health Bill 2014 because they contain issues bordering perilously on trafficking of human tissues from Nigerian citizens.  “To pass NHB 2014 as it is will be to leave a loophole for trafficking to occur under government permission issued by the Minister of Health.

“Nigeria is in need of a health Bill that will reflect the reality of our lives, beliefs, morals and culture and not one which will legitimize a Biological Colonialism of Nigeria. Thus, articles 51and 53 must be expunged. The National Health Bill 2014 should explicitly declare that the sale and/or trafficking of human ovarian eggs, embryos, embryonic tissues and cloning of human beings are banned under any conditions.

Describing the NHB 2014  as “a recipe for the total collapse of the Health Sector”,  Dr. Philip Njemanze, Chairman, Global Profile Alliance, GPA, described the contents of Section 51 as “highly treasonable”. “The Senate and National Assembly have shown incompetence and have failed Nigerians. They need to answer to Nigerian judicial states over this bill and we are ready to drag the matter before the International Criminal Court.”