Group urges Buhari to assent pending health bills

The vice chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Health Care Services, Mohammed Usman, has implored President Muhammadu Buhari to consider signing into law all health bills pending before him.

This is coming as the National Advocates for Health also asked the president to assent pending health bills passed by the National Assembly.

In a briefing on Sunday in Abuja, the chairman of the group Prof. Oladapo Ladipo and vice chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Health Care Services, Mohammed Usman, said the bills are the National Health Insurance Commission Bill which provides a policy framework that makes Health Insurance mandatory in Nigeria, and the bills to establish the FCT Health Insurance Agency and the FCT Primary Health Care Development Board.

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Others include the amendment of the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria Establishment Act which provides for task shifting endeavours and also promotes private investments in the pharmaceutical sector, and the bills to establish the Health Information Practitioners Council and Institute of Chartered Chemists of Nigeria; which promotes professionalism and global best practices among health information practitioners and chemists respectively.

The group maintained that it was important for the president to urgently assent to the bills as the tenure of the 8th National Assembly would expire on the 9th of June.

“The implication of not giving assent to these bills before 9th June is the fact that they will have to return to the 9th National Assembly for consideration and undergo another long legislative process. We hope Mr President will do the needful by assenting to these passed bills,” they said.

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